


A Fate Better Than Death

by Patricia_Holm



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M, Jack Robinson Backstory, M/M, Mentions of Cancer, Mild Smut, Post-Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-16 15:53:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 27,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15440496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Patricia_Holm/pseuds/Patricia_Holm
Summary: After Phryne leaves for England, Jack reflects on how she had changed his outlook on life.  Phryne gets some news which causes her to reflect on what life really means to her. In the middle of all that personal reflection, they solve a case.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I am hugely indebted to many of you who write wonderful Jack / Phryne fic. I have learned a lot from reading and hopefully not inadvertently adopted ideas that weren't my own. 
> 
> I started this fic as a simple Jack Robinson Backstory. I had always been curious about this inscrutable character. Then, I had this idea about what would happen if Phyrne were to face the risk of death from something internal rather than sudden death in the middle of a case. But I have never had cancer, so I hope I have captured some of the emotional impact without being patronizing or inappropriate. I have tried to be period authentic about treatment and prosthetics though I have made Dot a bit more creative than the male inventors of the period seem to have been. In any event, the one chapter backstory turned into a 16 chapter casefic.
> 
> I never really believed that the plan at the end of Season 3 was to fly all the way to England. She had done almost no preparation for a flight which had only been attempted a few times at that point. I always believed she was just flying to the next port of call. But most people seem to think that she went all the way, so I researched the MacRobertson route and added a few extra days to her flying time.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacRobertson_Air_Race

Jack Robinson pulled up to his Richmond bungalow after a late shift at City South police station. It had been a long day. It started with the realization that the love of his life might be flying away forever and a rushed drive to the Melbourne airfield to finally overcome his reticence to telling her he loved her. Her response had been to tell him to ‘come after her’. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting her to do, but that wasn’t the worst thing he had imagined. Then she had kissed him with all the passion he had felt between them for the last two years. As he waved to her when she flew off, he was already mentally packing his bags. 

But by the time he had arrived at his office, all the reasons not to go were lining up like checkers on a draughts board. He had responsibilities, he didn’t have time, he couldn’t afford to go, he would lose his job, and worst of all, she didn’t really mean it. “If she had meant that she wanted me, truly wanted me, she would have asked me to wait, not to come with her. She knows that my life is here.” In the pit of his stomach, he worried that asking him to follow her meant that she wasn’t coming back. She said it herself ‘there’s a whole world out there, Jack, my father is the least of your worries.’ 

Fortunately, when he had gotten back to the station, there was a recent outbreak of robberies waiting for him and Constable Collins would be away on his honeymoon for a least a few more days. So, he had thrown himself into the work as a way to distract him from thinking about anything else. And he had had some good progress. His temporary constable, Wilkins, was a good bloke with an eye for detail and common sense. He had already identified some similarities between the robberies that suggested that they might have been committed by the same person or gang. In almost every case, entry to the homes had been gained through the second floor and by using lockpicks, not breaking doors or windows. Yet, also in almost every case when confronted, there was violence. That’s what made them robberies, not burglaries. So, the perpetrator was a dangerous person, not a mischievous cat burglar. Unfortunately, they had no fingerprints to go on and nothing had been fenced to date. The witnesses, who were also victims of violence, didn’t have much to offer by way of a description. The nature of the witnesses was another somewhat but not completely unusual fact, one that Phyrne would have picked up on immediately. ‘Damn her eyes, I wish I could get through a day without her coming into my head’, he thought. All the victims were staff, not owners. Certainly, domestic servants would be present in the houses but not often on the second floor late at night. The second floor was for the employers, the staff were ‘below stairs’. So, one might expect at least one owner to be in the list, but none were. He wasn’t sure what it meant, but he filed it away for future reference.

As he walked into his modest home, when the office work couldn’t hold him any longer, Phryne came back into his thoughts again. This was the house he had bought with Rosie when they were first married in 1913. He was 21 years old and she was 20. They had their entire lives in front of them. Never, in a million years would he have thought things would turn out as they had. When the newlyweds had moved into this tiny house it was all they could afford on a police constable’s wages, but they were determined to make it a cozy home for the family they were planning. A bit of help from Rosie’s father, DI Sanderson, had helped and his own parents gave them a bit of money to get started, too. Looking at his parlour now, 15 years later, he could see the ways that his various lives had ‘accreted’ on the house in layers. 

Jack had worked under and was mentored by George Sanderson. He had first met him when Sanderson attended a burglary at Jack’s parent’s haberdashery. Jack’s grandfather had been a hat maker, but his father had expanded the business to men’s furnishings and other notions after marrying Jack’s mother who was a seamstress. Jack had always had nicely made clothes and appreciated the skills required to make them. 

George Sanderson impressed a teenage Jack with his detecting and suggested that a lad with his interest in science and sport might make a good copper one day. Jack’s parents had tried to dissuade him and encourage him to go to university, but Jack had gotten the bug. So, even though he was the youngest of the three boys, it was his middle brother who had been sent to school and the oldest who followed his father into the needle trade. Jack signed up for the police academy the day he finished school and was accepted on his first try. After training and his first few years on the beat, Sanderson requested that he be made a Detective Constable and assigned to City South as his subordinate. 

Jack had adored George Sanderson and wanted to follow in his footsteps. Sanderson represented honesty, valour, bravery, loyalty and a commitment to the rule of law. He didn’t suffer fools, gladly or at all and he was committed to cleaning up Melbourne. When he met Rosie Sanderson on his regular morning pickups of the DI, he was smitten. She was bright and funny like her father and pretty into the bargain. Jack had only ever had a few gropes and kisses behind the stands at the footy stadium, but Rosie had overcome his shyness and made him feel like the kind of man he wanted to become. George was pleased that his protégé and his daughter wanted to make a life together.

After their marriage, Rosie had picked out the paint colours and wallpaper to make the rooms of the tiny bungalow feel bright and open and much larger than they really were. He fondly remembered making love to her covered in wallpaper paste as they spent all their time decorating and trying to make the first of what he hoped would be many children. He had set up a shed in the back to do the necessary carpentry and also started a vegetable garden. It was idyllic, if idyllic meant a very homey, very domestic, very ordinary life. That Jack Robinson had been chuffed about it every evening that he sat on the front porch with his lovely young bride. 

And then the war. And then the bloody obscenity that was the Great War. Jack enlisted almost as soon as war was declared on August 4, 1914. Because of his rank with the Victoria Police he was appointed a Lance Corporal and given a section of men to command. It was his first real leadership role and he took it very seriously. His regiment was initially sent to Gallipoli and while they suffered some significant losses, Gallipoli was not the front that haunted his dreams. He had taken a bit of shrapnel at Gallipoli but was treated in a field hospital and returned to his section. Apart from a few scars on his torso and arms, there was little to show for that part of his war. It was Pozieres that still woke him up at night with cold sweats. 

Nothing could ever adequately describe the horrors of France during that war. It was wet, muddy, bloody, noisy and full of death. No one who served at the Somme could describe that time without talking about the noise; the constant roar of artillery raining shell upon shell. Most who returned found themselves spooked by loud noises, even now, 10 years after it was over. Jack’s middle brother, the sweet one who had gone to Uni, didn’t come home from the Somme. Despite the row on row of crosses in the green fields of France, Jack knew that Richard’s body was in a million pieces strewn throughout the landscape along with the tens of thousands of others he had watched being blown to smithereens. ‘And for what? For some poncy monarchs who couldn’t care less.’ The loss of Richard still haunted Jack like he had an ice cube in his heart. 

Jack had gone away a young and optimistic patriot and came home a dour and serious man. It wasn’t all up to Richard’s death though. He himself had been wounded. During a particularly bad round of shelling, while Jack was encouraging his men to stand firm, he was blown backwards by a mortar and landed on his back on top of a Maxim machine gun. His lower back was badly burned by the steam in the water-cooling system. When he woke up face down in the field hospital, he couldn’t move but didn’t feel any pain. “The nerves are all dead,” the porter told him. You’ve lost most of the skin and some of the flesh. It sometimes happens with the burn injuries, you can’t feel pain anymore, but it doesn’t mean everything’s okay.” The porter told him that they were keeping the burns wet and dosing him with morphine as a sedative to keep him still. He would be shipped out to England for treatment. The next thing he remembers in any detail is waking up in an old manor house somewhere in England in excruciating pain. 

The doctor who treated him told him that the return of the pain was a good sign that he was recovering. When Jack had said, “so when I start screaming uncontrollably, I can go back to work?”, Dr. McDougall had laughed and replied in his thick Scottish burr, “a sense of humour goes a long way.”

His 4 months in the VA hospital in Sussex probably changed him more than even the trenches had. While staying there, he met a young officer named Daniel Bombardier who was a lecturer at Cambridge. Daniel’s field was history, but he also read classics, languages and philosophy. Jack, the young Lance Corporal cum Detective Constable had never met anyone like Daniel before. Having not gone to Uni, Jack’s reading, while broad compared to his police colleagues paled next to a Cambridge don. Daniel, on the other hand, thrilled at Jack’s stories of police raids and other acts of seeming derring-do. Daniel had lost an arm at Vimy Ridge when he was fighting with the Canadians and was still learning how to do things one-handed. Jack came in handy for cutting meat and buttoning uniforms. Together they found solace in stories ancient and modern. Jack voraciously read everything that Daniel recommended, even trying to figure out how to conjugate Latin verbs so he could read Homer and Virgil. It was like an entire universe appeared out of nowhere and eclipsed the one he had believed to be complete in a small bungalow in Richmond, Melbourne.

The experience crystalized in a single moment one afternoon shortly before Jack was demobbed. He and Daniel had been rowing on the lake belonging to the manor house when Daniel had leaned in and kissed him. Without realizing what had happened, Jack was kissing him back with more urgency than he had ever kissed Rosie. And then some other part of his brain kicked in and he pulled back, more in surprise than distaste. Daniel had apologized for misunderstanding and they returned to the hospital carrying on a genial, if a bit strained, conversation about military tactics in the Punic wars. They never broached the subject again and Jack went home a few weeks later. He did write to Daniel for years, however, and continued to share his police stories and read Daniel’s recommended reading list. The letters had recently stopped abruptly, and Jack feared the worst, that Daniel was dead or in jail. 

As Jack passed through Brighton on his way to the troop ship that would take him home, he had stopped for a couple of nights in a brothel that some of the officers had talked about. He wasn’t ashamed about what had happened with Daniel, but he strongly felt the need to reassert his interest in women. Although his sex life with Rosie had been busy and healthy, he learned some tricks from the women in Brighton that might have made his hair curl had he discovered them as a beat cop in Melbourne. Certainly, he learned what certain specialized equipment could do to enhance an evening in the boudoir. However, he knew it wasn’t something he could share with Rosie. One thing he knew she would never forgive was infidelity. Unfortunately, the weekend with the working women was the least of the indignities that he would go on to visit upon his innocent wife.

Thus, while Rosie recognized the external Jack who came down the gangway, she didn’t know much about the internal Jack at all. 

The post-war Jack had started to accrete on the walls of the bungalow almost immediately. While waiting to be cleared to return to his position with the police, he had started constructing bookshelves in the shed in the garden. He was a competent carpenter, so they were straight and square but not up to the quality of a cabinet maker. He started just in a corner of the parlour but soon had filled an entire wall with the books Daniel had and still recommended. Eventually, the books covered the walls of the small bedroom, the one that had been meant for a small Robinson. 

Rosie had spent the war as a teacher and still wanted them to start a family. In fact, she wanted it more now than before he had left. But Jack wanted none of it. Children grow up to die, like Richard had done. No parent could endure that pain. He knew because he saw how it had broken his parents that Richard had not come home. He couldn’t comfort them because he believed his brother’s death was not an act of patriotism but sheer and utter waste. Rosie believed that the response to horror was to create life, but Jack couldn’t bear it. They argued and sometimes wound up having angry, frantic sex. Jack always left their bed feeling shame and manipulation. If he had asked her, Rosie would have said she felt the same. Eventually, he moved himself into the small bedroom with his books as his companions. 

The Police Strike of 1923 was the final straw in their marriage. Jack felt the brotherhood between the police and the other workers given his experience at the front. But Rosie could only see Jack’s role in the strike as a betrayal of her father. Even though George had protected Jack’s job and saw him promoted to Sergeant and then Inspector, the rift with Sanderson father and daughter, was too deep. And after a while, Rosie decided to move out. He knew why. She thought her absence would bring him to his senses. But all he felt was relief. By day he could throw himself into the noble work of policing and by night he could disappear into a story about someone else. 

Once Rosie was gone for good, the curtains were no longer opened every day, the bright colours and wallpaper began to fade and turn sepia and he started using the wedding china for cufflinks and collar pins upstairs and pipe ashes downstairs. A night with a pipe and a book by the fire was his greatest pleasure. Yet, notwithstanding the seeming permanency of the temporary separation, Jack was never intimate with another woman. It wasn’t that they weren’t interested in him or that he wasn't interested in them. For Jack, a marriage was a marriage. He had made vows and he would honour them. 

Then in walked Phryne Fisher. At first, she seemed to him to be just another society busybody with too much time and too much money. But he could pinpoint the exact moment he fell in love with her. It started when he saw her feet sticking out of a second-floor window as she broke into the apartment of the victim of a murder he was investigating. “How in the name… in a skirt and pumps, no less,” he thought as he worked out that she must have climbed up the drainpipe. He had arrested her for trespass, hoping that it might discourage her from continuing to interfere in his cases, but that seemed to egg her on. He watched with astonishment as she flirted shamelessly with his constable during her mug shots and then had her maid deliver lunch to the station in place of a solicitor. But the moment he was hooked was when he scolded her that she wasn’t taking the situation seriously and she replied, “Of course not, I haven’t taken anything seriously since 1918.” In a flash it was as if all the pain of the past 15 years was bathed in a bath of cool water. Jack’s response to 1918 was to take everything more seriously than it deserved. Phryne Fisher’s was to tell the whole world and its rules to ‘piss off’. And it was apparent in that moment, which prescription was working. 

He had not arrested her in the end, but he had kept the photographs in the drawer of his desk both as a reminder not to take the world so seriously but also of the possibility that love could still be found. 

In all the time they had spent together, she had never pressed him on the story of his life. He figured she probably had had him investigated, but she only ever teased him about the more salacious things that he mentioned, like the Chinese brothel and his ex-wife’s new men. 

Even Phyrne’s presence had started to accrete in his little bungalow, even though she had never been there. Since knowing her, he had started to open the curtains more and let in the light. He had acquired some small, but not inexpensive objets d’art to adorn the mantel and his book shelves began to include French dictionaries and books on art and architecture. 

This night, he would sit in his chair by the fire and decide whether or not to purchase a ticket on the Orient Line to travel to England. But he already knew that the answer was, yes.


	2. Around the World in 15 Days or So

When Phryne took off from Melbourne Airfield with her father, Baron Richmond, aboard, the plan had been to simply fly to the next port of call for his ship, drop him on it and fly home. But circumstances conspired against her. Their first stop didn’t have enough fuel available for them to get to the next depot and they had to wait for more to be trucked in. If having her father along wasn’t bad enough, he complained bitterly from the first day at having to bivouac in small towns like Charleville and again in Darwin before the weather would permit them to head across to Singapore. But once she had made the decision to go all the way to Asia, it made sense to simply carry on all the way to London, spend some time with her mother and old friends before returning by ship. All in all, she would wind up away from Melbourne for about three months. Away from Jack, too. 

Just as they were finally able to make their feelings known, if not completely clear, she was now, due to her irresponsible father, going to be apart from Jack for an unacceptably long time. That is, unless, he took her up on her invitation and came after her. She fervently hoped he did, though, she remembered with remorse that even as she said it, she threw a spanner into it. Phryne wished she could understand why she had said, “there was a whole world out there,” in response to his declaration that he had always been afraid that someone would sweep her away from him. “Probably fear of commitment,” she admonished herself. After a lifetime of being independent, the thought that being away from Jack felt wrong, was more than a little scary. 

They didn’t break the record on the trip, though Phryne did fly the MacRobertson route through Allahabad and Baghdad, along with Rome and Calais. But the trip did get written up for the London Times: “Woman Pilot Defies the Odds Flying from Melbourne to London in Near Record Time.” She figured Jack would be amused at the headline and Dot would not. 

Phyrne had spent a lot of time in the air thinking about Jack and what it would be like to see him again and then to enter into a relationship with him. Obviously, her first thoughts were to how and in what order she would remove his staid, if well made, clothes. She wondered what he might be like as a lover. “Still waters run deep” is the way the aphorism went. She had no idea about his former lovers, if there were any besides Rosie. Thinking about Jack and Rosie was somewhat confusing – on the one hand she was, surprisingly, jealous, while on the other, she felt curious. But all in all, she imagined him to be an attentive and tender lover. Not the most acrobatic she had ever had, but far from the most boring or inept. 

It was the time she wanted to spend with him out of bed that caused her more questions. Jack was an enigma to her. She loved the witty banter, the sense of humour, the nobility of his commitment to justice, the fairness that he brought to all of his cases. She enjoyed the breadth of his knowledge of subjects like history, literature and science. He was her favourite night cap companion by far. But in all the times that she could have seduced him in her parlour, she never had. She had intimated and flirted, but she kept her powder dry every time. And so had he. It wouldn’t have taken much effort for him to light a spark for her, but he also kept his cool. Obviously, the friendship was too much to risk for a mere liaison. And yet even after 15 days in the air with nothing more to think about, she couldn’t pin down the magic in the relationship. She sincerely hoped that when she got to London, there would be a message with a vessel name and time of docking on a telegram from DI Jack Robinson. 

Phryne dropped the wheels on Croydon Airfield with sighs of relief from both her and Baron Richmond. They had wired ahead from Calais and the Baron’s chauffeur was there to meet them in his Rolls Royce. Phyrne left the airfield manager with instructions to mend and clean her Gipsy Moth to get ready for sale. The Baron had sold the family estate to pay off debts and a long-lost relative who had conspired to murder him, so they decanted to the London house where they could get reacquainted with her mother and cleaned up. Phryne wanted to soak in a bath as warm as scalding tea and as deep as the ocean. But first she wanted to review her correspondence. 

She had some short but sweet telegrams from Dot and Jane and an exciting one from Jack. 

“Bkd Orient Orsova Oct 15 STOP Arr Ldn Dec 20 STOP”

At dinner that evening, it was apparent to her why her mother had put up with so much grief over the years. She was deeply in love with the Baron. Phryne felt relief that she had worked so hard to keep their marriage intact, even it if had cost her three months of time with the man that she wanted to look at with such respect and adoration. 

Over breakfast, she asked her mother what it was that made their troubled yet loving relationship so enduring. 

“I wish I could tell you, Phyrne. By all conventional standards, he should be living at his club with a string of mistresses and I should see him only when necessary to host dignitaries at home. He is a cad, a liar, and a cheat. But he is also the most interesting man I have ever known and, pardon my frankness, he is very good at bringing me carnal pleasure.” 

“Please, mother, you could have stopped at interesting.” 

“Why do you ask, anyway, Phyrne? You have never hidden your disdain for domesticity and fidelity. Why do you think we were happy enough to see the back of you on the boat to the Antipodes? It wasn’t that we don’t love you, but rather that we couldn’t contain you.”

“Truthfully, mother, I don’t know. When I left Australia to fly Father home, I said goodbye to the only man who has ever been indecipherable to me. I like puzzles, and he is a complex one.” 

“Tell me about him,” her mother encouraged, curling up on the sofa with a fresh cup of tea.

“He is a police inspector.” Phyrne’s mother gagged into her tea cup and threw her head back laughing. 

“A police inspector has got you in a muddle? Phryne, you are losing your touch.”

“Don’t laugh mother, you’ll just choke and die and be inconvenient.” Phyrne looked impatiently at her mother.

“Carry on.”

“Well, for starters, he is tall, dark and handsome. He is a bit buttoned up and always wears a jacket and waistcoat even in the Australian heat. But his clothes are impeccable and he is well hatted.”

“So he meets your high sartorial standards. What about when he is not dressed?”

“That’s the thing. I don’t know what he’s like when he’s not dressed. I’ve never seen him other than fully clothed.”

“Shall I send for the family physician, Phryne. You can’t be well. I mean, you took every servant we had under the age of seventy to bed before you were 18 years old. You have not seduced this man? Oh, of course, I see, you have just met him.”

“No, mother, and you do me a disservice. I only took the handsome servants to my bed. I have known Jack about two years.”

Margaret Fisher snorted so hard she got tea up her nose and had a coughing fit for several minutes. 

“He’s an invert?”

“No”

“He’s married?”

“Divorced.”

“He’s deaf, dumb and blind?” Phyrne’s mother asked with a tone of incredulity.

“No mother, and I resent your implication. I could have seduced him if I’d wanted to. I just didn’t want to and that’s the point. I don’t know why I never wanted to seduce him. I just want to have him around all the time.”

“I believe that the traditional term for that, Phyrne, is friendship.”

“Just so. He is my friend. In fact, apart from Mac, Jack Robinson, is my dearest friend in the world.”

“So then don’t seduce him. Simple.”

“Not simple, mother, I want him so badly my teeth ache.” 

“Then seduce him. Also, simple.”

“Not simple, mother. He wants that too, I think, but he wants something more and I don’t know what something more is and whether I can give it.”

“Do you want to have him around for the rest of your life?”

“Yes.”

“Are you prepared to sacrifice everything to be with him?” 

“I don’t know?”

“Ah. Well, then I would say that in a normal person the technical term is love and in you it is love combined with bull-headed stubbornness. You are just like your father. And so, if you want to know what you would be like in a marriage, you just have to look at him.”

“Argghh! Please don’t say that.”

“Not necessarily in a bad way. You wouldn’t steal his money, cheat, lie or gamble. But you would play fast and loose with his heart. If he loves you like I love the Baron, he will stay and endure. But if, as you say, he is noble and upright, he won’t tolerate it. So, you have to decide what you can tolerate.”

“And therein lies the rub. Look at the time! I must be off to dress, I am meeting Lucy Graham for lunch at the London Women Adventurers Club. They want to chronical my flight from Melbourne.”

Phryne hurried off to bathe before heading out to lunch. As she soaked in the water, she thought about Jack without his suit and waistcoat. She had forgotten when she spoke to her mother that she had seen him in something other than worsted. She had seen him in a borrowed swimming costume when they had solved the murder with the missing doubloon up in Queenscliff. With that image in her mind, she ran her hands over her wet body and between her legs. Her imagination conjured up a naked Jack Robinson walking towards her out of the surf, his arousal evident in both his face and his body. She moved one hand up to her right breast, cupping it and rubbing her nipple and as she did so, she noticed a change in the shape that made her blood run cold. She had a lump on the side of her breast that extended under her right armpit. 

During lunch at the Adventurer’s Club she inquired of one of her friends who was a physician, whom she would recommend talking to about cancer. Dr. Alice Johnston recommended a member of her medical school graduating class, Dr. Roland Carlton-Paget. “Roland is the best in the business and he takes women seriously, which is a bonus. I will call him and get you in right away.”


	3. Phyrne Gets Some Bad News

“Miss Fisher, I am afraid from my initial examination, that I am quite certain it is cancerous. Of course, we need to see it under a microscope, but the shape, texture and location suggest that it is unlikely to be anything else. When did you first notice it again?”

“This morning.” 

“How long do you think it might have been there, that is how long ago did you examine your breast?” 

“I can’t really say how long ago I examined it. It has actually been a few months since someone else ‘examined’ it, if I may be so bold.” She was thinking of Group Captain Lyle Compton but although their amorous activities had included palpating her breast he hadn’t mentioned anything about it. Before Lyle, she hadn’t had a lover for months. “Remarkable, when you think about it,” she thought to herself.

“A few months, I suppose.” 

“I ask, because the sooner we operate the better the life expectancy.”

“Operate?” Phyrne asked

“Of course,” the doctor replied. “The only cure and the only treatment that we know will work is radical mastectomy.” Phyrne stared. “Yes, Miss Fisher, we remove the breast, the mammary tissue and the nodes under the arm. It may be disfiguring, but it works. You can keep your beautiful breast, or you can live.”

Phyrne looked away to regain her composure. Then she brightened. “I read about some new treatments for cancer that involve radium. Surely we didn’t come through that gawd-awful war without some new chemical advances for things like this.”

Dr. Carlton-Paget shook his head sadly. “Radium was going to be the miracle cure. It will kill the cancer, but also the patient. I, myself, was doing some of the research on the success of the drugs. At first, I was elated, but recently my results have confirmed that the cure is worse than the disease, as they say. I won’t let you try it, Miss Fisher. I know that the radical mastectomy sounds, well, radical. And it is. But it works.”

Phyrne responded angrily, “if the cure for cancer of the penis was amputation, I expect that an alternative would have been arrived at much sooner than we will ever see an alternative to radical mastectomy.” She spit the words out like they were poison in her mouth.

“You are probably right, Miss Fisher. I can book you in for surgery in a week. First we have to confirm with x-rays and biopsy what we are dealing with but then we have to act.” 

“Do you know Dr. Elizabeth MacMillan of University Hospital in Melbourne?”

“I believe I have heard of her. She writes on forensics and women’s health?”

“Yes, that’s her. I want her to do the surgery. Can you arrange that?”

“Has she done it before?”

“I don’t know, but how hard can it be?”

“Difficult, Miss Fisher, don’t underestimate that. I can wire her and inquire. But it will take a month and a half for her to get here, which is time I would rather we not waste.” 

“Oh, we won’t do it here. I will fly back to Melbourne and she will do it there.”

“Fly, Miss Fisher?”

“Yes, Dr. Carlton-Paget, fly. Please see to booking those tests immediately and I will see to the travel arrangements.”

Phryne left the Hartley Street office, walked into the nearest park, sat down and sobbed like a baby. Then she wiped her nose, stood up and took herself sternly in hand. “Crying never solved anything,” she admonished herself, and walked directly to the telegraph office. 

“To Jack Robinson,

Chngd plns STOP dn’t trvl STOP Mre sn STOP.”

She considered writing “love, Phyrne” but hesitated and then decided against it. She knew he would be puzzled and probably upset, but she didn’t have enough reserves of energy to worry about that now. 

“To Elizabeth MacMillan,

Breast Cancer STOP Surg Nec STOP Wnt you to do STOP Will fly hm ASAP STOP”

Phyrne then went to Bond Street, purchased the most scandalous gown she could find, went home, inserted her diaphragm and had her father’s chauffeur deposit her at the Kit Kat Club. She didn’t come home for two whole days. If she was going to leave this world with one less breast, she was going out in a blaze of glory. 

There were two telegrams waiting for her when she got home from her descent into debauchery.

One from Mac.

“Cn do surg STOP Will pck up on arr STOP Be strong STOP Mac”

And a characteristically economical one, both figuratively and literally, from Jack.

“Plns on hld STOP Trst OK STOP”

 

Watching her face as she read the telegrams, her mother diagnosed some kind of existential sadness and buttonholed her later in the parlour before dinner. 

“It’s breast cancer, mother. I am going to lose a breast.”

“Oh, Phyrne,” her mother gasped and put her hand to her mouth. “Oh Phryne, we can’t lose you. Not you, not you.” 

“I’m not going to die, mother, at least not yet. Though I’m not certain dying is the worst outcome here. But before you lay out my funeral wardrobe, I am going to fly home to Australia where my friend Elizabeth MacMillan will do the surgery to remove my breast and then I will decide what happens next.” 

When she returned to Roland Carlton-Paget’s surgery the next day to hear the results of the tests and pick up her records to bring to Mac, he gave her the best cheering up that he could. 

“Miss Fisher, there are many fates worse than losing a breast. I cannot know the grief that you are experiencing and will experience, but I treat many people for whom the only advice I have is that they set their affairs in order. Based on the examination of the biopsy and the x-rays, you are likely to live a long and healthy life. Beauty is not contained in any particular body part, Miss Fisher, it is in the life lived. Even in the short time of our acquaintance, it is clear to me that you are a rare treasure and we cannot, as we recover our senses as a species, lose the ones like you who face the world clear headed but with a decided flare.” 

“Roland, I won’t forget what you say and I won’t forget your help with this situation. I have endured worse in my life, but somehow never imagined that I would face my greatest foe from the inside out. However, I am very rich and if there is some way that I can contribute to research that will improve the chances of women keeping their breasts in the future, please let me know.”

“Miss Fisher, I want that outcome, too. I am sorry that the radium work did not result in the miracle we all want, but even scientific failures are successes in that they show us where to stop looking. Tomorrow, I will be presenting my findings at the Royal Society and then returning the advance funding to Fister Pharmaceuticals so that they can get started on more promising options.”

“Good luck Roland and thank you.”

“Safe travels, Phryne. I can’t believe you are going to fly all the way to Australia tomorrow just to have your friend do the surgery.”

“I am hoping that the flight gives me time to reflect on what it all means. And though I have come to have great respect for you Roland, I want my best friend to wield the knife in this situation. Only her.”

“I understand, completely. Bon Voyage.”

Phyrne left the office with mist in her eyes but some hope for the future. It was late in the afternoon and as she passed through the waiting room she noted that there was only one more patient to see, a rugged but handsome young man. She wondered if he was one of the ones who would need to put his ‘affairs in order’ even at such a young age. With that thought, she hurried out to find a taxi to take her home. She planned to leave the next morning.


	4. The Things We Do For Love of Money

Patients like Phryne Fisher were what he loved and hated most about his work. Roland Carlton-Paget had gone into oncology because he believed that it would be possible to cure cancer within his lifetime. His own father had died from cancer and as a young medical student he had made it his mission to find a way to end this scourge. He could tolerate having to give a bad prognosis to old men who had already lived full lives and he enjoyed working with strong young patients like Phryne who were ready to fight for their lives. These people gave him the boost he needed when he had to tell young mother’s that the cancer was too far advanced for him to save them or young men that they had to put their meagre affairs in order well before they had even had a chance to assemble them. 

His private life was no less full of ups and downs. He had known he was a homosexual almost all of his life. He had a lover named Harold Richardson whom he had met when he had gone up to Oxford for his medical degree. Richardson was the second son of a second son with all that that entailed. He was full of brash entitlement but no money. While Roland was an excellent scholar and the scion of a wealthy family, Harry was more of the sporty type as well as charming and funny. Roland and Harry got on almost immediately. Roland helped Harry with his studies and Harry made Roland feel like the sort of hale and hearty young man he had admired in books. After finishing at Oxford, Roland with a First and Harry with a meagre 2.2 they both went to the City. Roland started his practice in Hartley Street under the tutelage of the old family physician to the Carlton-Pagets. Harry went to work in a company. There were not many other options for the second son of a second son and the only reasonable other choice was the clergy. Harry toiled as a copywriter and company secretary while Roland soared in his medical practice. Yet they remained as in love with one another as ever. In Edwardian England a romance like theirs was not unknown but not easy to manage. They were frequently together but didn’t share rooms. A few whispers were shared about the nature of the relationship but as long as discretion was observed, Roland’s family status would protect them. 

In his business work, Harry had met some American investors who were working on a new treatment for cancer using radium. They required a physician to use the product and do some testing. Harry immediately saw an opportunity for him and Roland to work on a project together that might see Harry lifted out of what he saw as the penury of working for a living. Roland was also excited about the chance to do work on the potential cure for cancer. Harry brokered the deal between Roland and Fister Pharmaceutical including himself as a shareholder in the potential profits. The investors had told Harry that if the consortium could find the cure for cancer they would be famous and worth millions. The deal also provided that Harry and Roland would have the exclusive rights to the drug in the United Kingdom. As far as Harry was concerned, nothing could go wrong. There was already research going on in the United States and Europe that looked promising. 

Fister advanced £50,000 to Roland and Harry to cover up front costs. Roland commenced his research program and began treating patients with the radium drugs. He had gotten some excellent early results, but as he read the work coming out of the US and Germany, he began to have concerns. Those patients were reported as losing teeth and bone mass and some had become very gravely ill. The Fister representatives brushed the reports off as anomalies or errors. But Roland was suspicious. He watched for symptoms in his patients and noticed one young woman started to complain about pain in her jaw. After x-rays confirmed that her jaw was losing mass just like the American and European cases, he made the decision to end the work and destroy the research. He also planned to go public about the dangers of radium as a treatment for cancer and scheduled an appearance at the Royal Society. He did not want Fister to sweep his work under the carpet and put other patients at risk. 

The young man that Phryne saw on her way out of Carlton-Paget’s office was Harry. He often picked up Roland at the end of the day for a light supper and a drink. He had overheard Roland telling Phyrne about his concerns about the drugs and plans to go public. Roland had shared his misgivings throughout the project as the research began to trickle in about the side effects but he agreed with Fister that it was all a bit too ambiguous to pull the plug yet. 

When Phryne was gone, Harry had confronted Roland and begged him not to stop the research. He exhorted him to reconsider. “Perhaps it is an error, perhaps the women would have gotten sick anyway, perhaps we can improve the formula. Roland, you don’t understand what this means. You come from money, I don’t. This drug is my ticket to the life I deserve.”

“Harry, I love you and you don’t need this project or this money. I can take care of you.”

“Roland, you have never understood. This isn’t about love it is about freedom.” 

Harry had stormed out. He had never told Roland that he had borrowed heavily to help bankroll the project. Roland assumed that all the money had come from Fister, but Harry had also contributed to ensure that he would have a share in the final profits. 

It was a custom of Roland and Harry to end their evenings at Roland’s town house with a night cap. He arrived there late the same night, very drunk and very angry. The topic of the research was broached again and Roland had stood firm. 

“Harry, I took an oath to ‘first do no harm’. What you are asking me to do flies in the face of that.”

Harry laughed derisively. “You were always the noble one. You know how many of your colleagues would jump at this chance and damn the research. Why can’t you be like that?”

“Because I am not like that and I thought that was why you loved me.”

Roland opened the safe. "Here is the money, Harry. I'm going to give it back. And here is the research that I am taking to the Royal Society tomorrow. It's over. But it's still good news. What we have learned about the dangers of radium will help the next researchers to do better." Roland's look of triumph was more than he could take. He grabbed the fireplace poker, beat Roland to death and took the money, the formula and the research. Despite his drunken and desperate state, he knew that the easiest way to delay detection was to make it look like Roland had been killed because of his sexuality. So he carried Roland to the car and took him to the lane behind the Caravan Club in Soho. 

When Harry sobered up the next day, he realized that he needed to make a getaway to somewhere that no one knew him or about the dangers of the treatment. He recalled hearing Roland’s patient talking about flying to Australia. Though he had never been in a plane, the idea struck him as perfect. At first light, he took a cab to the Croydon Air Field. He arrived in time to hear the very same patient in an argument with the manager about whether it was safe for her to fly back to Australia alone. Harry introduced himself as David Rhys-Jones and offered to go with her saying he always wanted to travel and would sail back on his own. 

“There, Phryne said defiantly to the air field manager. I have a companion, now please accept this flight plan and make the Moth ready for take-off in an hour.”

“Mr. ‘what did you say’ Rhys-Jones, you can’t bring much luggage, I’m afraid.”

“Not to worry, Miss Fisher, I only need this overnight bag." 


	5. Up in the Air

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a pretty short chapter, but I wasn't as interested in the trip as the arrival in Melbourne.

On her way to London, Phyrne had occupied her time thinking about what a future with Jack Robinson might be like. On her way back to Melbourne, it was a constant struggle against despair not to think about her coming disfigurement and what it might mean to that same relationship. Her mother had laughed at her for her dismay as she tried to understand why she had such a strong friendship with a police inspector. Margaret Fisher had also told her that when it came to romantic entanglements she was just like her father Henry Fisher. Phryne hated hearing that. Her father was feckless, untrustworthy, and a cheat. Phryne never gave her lovers any reason to think that she wanted more than their company and their bodies. If they got ideas into their heads, that was their own bloody fault. 

Of course, she had had no shortage of men who fell in love with her and made declarations of undying fealty or requests for her hand. She wasn’t unkind in her rejections but reject them she did. After her one broken heart, in Paris, due to the violent cad Rene Dubois, she had decided that falling in love was for fools. It also had not escaped her analysis that women who got married wound up cooking and making babies, tasks for which she was decidedly unsuited. Until now, though, she had never really realized the toll that might take on her as she watched men she was fond of find other long-term lovers, like Lin Chung had done. As she faced herself squarely into the headwind of this cancer, she sorely wished that she had a partner who would help to steer the ship. 

This is where her relationship with Jack had been different. Despite his initial resistance to her declaration of herself as a detective, he had never suggested that she was just a ‘little woman’. He always respected her intelligence and spirit. He always made her feel like a peer, even making her a special constable when he needed her help. She knew that she irritated him at the beginning of their friendship, but she never felt like he would dismiss her as stupid or weak. This was new to her. Most of her lovers were interesting but none of them except for Lin ever saw her as a true equal. Some, she knew, just saw her as a tart, which made her laugh. Others as an experience, especially the young men who were forever falling in love with her. She didn’t see them as equals and so they didn’t matter. She had some old friends who were also old lovers and they were like old shoes. But Jack was different. She had known he was in love with her for a long time and she knew that she could have had him as a lover if she had wanted to, but neither of them wanted that. Whenever it seemed close to happening, one or the other would draw away. She told herself that she scared him, but the truth was that she scared herself. She found herself desperate for his approval, for his conversation, for his looks of adoration or even sometimes of panic when it seemed she was destined for a sticky end. All of those things meant more to her than her wealth or fame or other lovers. It was rather troubling for someone so determined to be a free spirit. The closer she got to Australia and the coming surgery, the more she realized that the only person she wanted to be with more than Mac, was Jack. 

That didn’t stop her from continuing to sow what wild oats she might have left. In each port of call, she managed to find a willing companion for her bed. Including, Davey Rhys-Jones, when they were stopped for a few days in Singapore before making the last big jump into Australia and then home. Jack might not want her now she was going to be disfigured and so she wanted one last man to see her fully formed. 

Davey had turned out to be a somewhat dull travelling companion. Like the Baron, he was terrified in the air so he didn’t talk much. On the ground, he rabbited on about cricket and other sports. Fortunately, there were other decorative young men interested in her attentions and she didn’t have to spend a great deal of time with him. She had noticed that he had an odd habit of carrying his carry-all with him everywhere he went. Usually they had a nice or at least adequate hotel room where things could be left behind, but he carried that bag as if it were full of gold. “Not everything is a mystery, Phyrne”, she admonished herself. 

Despite her reservations about Rhys-Jones, in Singapore she had found it somewhat difficult to find a romantic companion, and she was not above taking advantage of ‘any port in a storm’. 

Sleeping with Phyrne Fisher had not been something Harold Richardson had anticipated being a requirement of the trip. But in order to keep up his alibi, he tried to bed her. He knew that he came across as a fumbling and boring lover. In order to cover up for his lack of amorousness, he tried on a bit of violence which she nipped right in the bud. Phryne had been considering offering him some hospitality in her home at Wardlow on their arrival in Melbourne so he could get settled, but after that disastrous episode, she decided he could make his own way.


	6. Secret Homecoming

When Jack got Phryne’s cryptic telegram telling him not to travel, it confirmed what his worst self believed. She never meant for them to be together, it was just something you say as you head off on to a flight around the world. He didn’t cancel the tickets altogether in the faint hope that she might tell him to rebook, but he was not holding out much for that possibility. He wondered now if she would ever come back to Australia. Even if she came back with a new husband or lover, he might be able to manage, he told himself, and then laughed morosely. “No, you won’t be able to manage Jack Robinson. You are made of flesh and blood and are of this earth. Phyrne Fisher is made of magic and marvel and she is not meant for you.”

Collins had taken some mugshots of Phyrne the day that Jack had tried to arrest her for climbing up that infamous drainpipe. They were perfect Phryne Fisher; sassy, insousciant, sexy. He frequently resorted to them when he needed a pick me up, especially on the lonely nights that he knew she was entertaining a gentleman at home. He took the folder of photographs of her mugshots out of his desk. They usually made him laugh but that day they had made tears prick his eyes, so he put them away, took a deep breath and dived back into the monthly crime statistics. 

“Inspector,” Collins put his head in the office door, “What did Miss Fisher’s telegram say? Is she enjoying her time in London.” 

“Uh, … yes, Collins, she appears to be.” 

“That’s wonderful news isn’t it Inspector?” Jack’s failure to smile at the mention of Miss Fisher was new and Collins found it puzzling.

“Yes, Constable, I suppose it is. How are we doing on those second story jobs, Collins? I need to write an update for the new Deputy Commissioner.”

“Not much more to report, Sir. Still nothing has been fenced and no one has copped to the jobs.” Collins was sure something was wrong with the Inspector, but felt it wasn’t his place to ask. 

ooo000ooo

Two weeks later, Jack hadn’t heard any further from Phyrne, and had begun grieving that she would never return when he saw Dr. MacMillan’s car driving into town from the air field. She had a passenger whose face was hidden by a hat and veil, but Jack had the strongest sensation that it was Phryne. 

“You are so desperate now that you are seeing ghosts, Robinson,” he told himself. “Get your head together.”

But it was odd for Mac to be out at the air field, unless, maybe she was picking up a delivery of something. 

The sensation that it was Phryne bothered him all day. Despite his better judgement, Jack finally gave in and called Wardlow. Mr. Butler was quite sincere in his assertion that Miss Fisher was neither home nor expected imminently. 

“Shake it off, Robinson”, he told himself. 

ooo000ooo

Jack hadn't been wrong about seeing Phryne. But only Mac knew she was coming home. She had not told Dot or Mr. Butler. She wanted to tell the world about the changes in her life only when she was ready and the last thing she wanted were people fussing over her, weeping, gnashing their teeth and giving her spiritual advice. She had telephoned Mac from Charleville to pick her up at the air field and to bring a disguise. Mac had brought along her best black fedora and scarf and Phryne laughed at how it made her look a bit like Zorro when combined with her flight boots. 

After settling in at Mac’s house, having had a nice hot bath and a strong drink, she asked her friend and physician for the unfiltered explanation of what the surgery would mean.

“It’s not a new procedure. Surgeons have been doing mastectomies for a number of years now and the procedure is well documented. I have only done a couple of them, but I have observed others. It isn’t complicated, per se, but, as I’m sure you can understand, it’s delicate.”

“How long will it take?” Phyrne asked.

“Five to six hours. We have to make a rather long incision from your armpit to the middle of your chest, locate the mammary tissue, which is a bit tricky, as well as the lymph nodes, and remove them all. Then we take the remaining skin and stitch it back to create the neatest and smallest scar we can.”

“What will it look like afterwards?”

“We take the breast down to the pectoral muscles and we take out the nodes, so that side of your chest will be flat, like a man’s, and the armpit will be a bit sunken. It won’t look terrible under clothing. There are new prosthetics being developed in America that can replace the shape of a breast under a brassiere.” 

“Will I still have sensation?” Phryne inquired.

“If you mean sexual sensation, the answer is no. We have to take all the tissue and nerves as well as the nipple.” 

“So basically, I will be rather lopsided in looks and in feeling.”

“Well, lopsided in looks I guess. But Phryne, the human body is full of nerve endings. You ought to know that more than most of us. So, if you lose sensation in your right breast, you will simply have to make it up somewhere else.”

Phryne laughed. “Or someone else, who isn’t horrified by the sight, will.”

“Phryne, you disappoint me. You, who are so compassionate about others with flaws. Why can’t you see that you are not your breasts? You are not your scars. Everything that was true about Phryne Fisher before the surgery will still be true afterwards.”

“Except my ability to seduce a man on sight.”

“Even that will still be true. For God’s sake Phryne, you could seduce a man wearing nothing but a barrel.”

“That’s because under the barrel, I know, and he knows, that there isn’t a huge angry red scar where a rosy and plump breast should be.” 

“My god you have a low opinion of mankind. And that’s something coming from me.” 

They laughed. 

“Actually Mac, it isn’t mankind that I am worried about.”

“I know.” 

“What will I do about Jack?”

“What do you want to do about Jack?” 

“More to the point what do you think he will do about me?”

“Well, Phryne, since Jack Robinson is not a cad, I expect that he will feel exactly the same about you now as he did when you left, which is, he will feel irritated, put upon, and madly in love. Have you done something to him to change that?”

“When I left he came out to the airfield and swept me off my feet.”

“That’s something.”

“I told him to come after me and he booked a ticket on the Orsova which left 2 days ago. I wired him not to come, so he is still here somewhere, wondering what changed.” 

“Does he know you are in Melbourne?”

“No. No one does but you and the air field manager. Oh, and my passenger, but he doesn’t know anyone here.” 

“So, you were on the verge of a romantic liaison with Jack when you discovered you had cancer. You lost your nerve, told him to back off and flew home without telling him.”

“Right.”

“And now what?”

“I don’t know. It was one thing to plan a romantic liaison when I knew he was coming to ravish a beautiful and intact woman. Now, what if he recoils in horror?”

“Jack Robinson, recoil in horror? We are talking about the same person, aren’t we?”

“Mac, Jack is a man. Men are basically all the same. They want to be with beautiful women. When their women cease to be beautiful, they get mistresses.” 

“We are still talking about Jack Robinson, right?”

“Are you trying to tell me he is different?”

“For God’s sake, Phyrne, you know he’s different. If it weren’t for me, he would be your best friend in the world. He’s not a cad and he’s not a monster. Frankly, Phyrne, if it weren’t that I know you are in grief about your diagnosis, I would come over there and throw this drink in your face on his behalf. As between the two of you, you are the more likely one to recoil in horror at something less than perfect male flesh. Jack Robinson stayed dutifully married to a woman he didn’t love and stoically refused your shameless advances over the last two years, because he loved you for more than just your body. Give the man a break.”

“He’s never had a chance to make love to me with both my breasts,” she said, in her own, admittedly weak, defense. 

“Then there is no time like the present to go and fix that. You know where he lives, I’m sure, and you aren’t going under the knife for two days. Put on your best seductress barrel and get over there.”

Phryne laughed, “You are right. But that seems so predatory.” 

“And when did being predatory ever stop you before?”

Phryne seriously considered Mac’s suggestion but decided it wasn’t the right way to approach the problem. But she did sneak out in Mac’s car and stakeout City South with her black fedora on. Her heart clenched when she saw Jack walk out the front door. He turned towards the car and looked at it intently. She was afraid he might have blown her cover, but he shook his head and walked away. 

ooo000ooo

Jack left City South around 9 pm to walk home. He again had the strangest sensation that Phyrne was there, but when he looked around he only saw a couple of black sedans with no one in them. “Ghost again, I guess”, he said to himself as he shook his head. “Screw your head back on, Robinson, she’s not coming back.”


	7. Murder(er) Comes to Melbourne

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a bit of a flashback to London and covers the investigation by Scotland Yard. I really worked at making sure the timeline is right, but if you find any gaps, let me know.

After they landed at Melbourne, Harold Richardson watched as Phryne was whisked away in a black sedan driven by a red headed woman whom he was sure had the same unconventional temperament as he did. They didn’t offer him a ride, which he found rather churlish, given that he didn’t know anyone in Australia. The air field manager called him a cab and the driver recommended the Seascape Hotel. 

After he settled in, he began to make discreet inquiries about places where he could find men like himself. He wound up at the Blue Cat club, owned by an old friend of Phryne’s, Mr. Featherstonehaugh. Of course, Richardson had no idea how many people Phryne knew in Melbourne. Had he known, he might have caught a train for somewhere else. 

Nursing a drink at the club, he began to examine his options. He needed to find a physician who could understand Roland’s test results and continue the work on the drugs. He needed to find a pharmaceutical company who would be willing to work with the research, and possibly add to the financial stake that he was carrying around in his carry-all bag. And he needed a source of radium. 

He was unsure whether the death of Roland Carlton-Paget was news yet or whether it would make the news this far from London. He expected not, but that didn’t mean it might not be whispered about in medical circles if not the general public. So, he had to move cautiously. From his experiences in London, he knew that men of his temperament were generally very discreet in all their affairs. He also knew that the membership cut across all strata of society. Therefore, there was some chance he could find a physician amongst the members of the Blue Cat who could help him. And so, he was eventually introduced to Dr. Gerald Fredericks, a physician who in addition to being interested in cancer research, was conveniently in considerable debt due to a penchant for the horses. Fredericks agreed to set up a meeting with Botany Bay Pharmaceuticals out of Sydney. Things were looking up for Harry Richardson. 

ooo000ooo

Back in London, Scotland Yard had initially treated the death of another sodomite as generally a good thing and put it on the back burner when they first found the body back in October. Despite being well-dressed and apparently high born, the body couldn’t be identified due to severe damage to the face. With nothing to go on and no real incentive, the body remained in the morgue for some time. 

When Roland’s nurse had come into work the day after the murder, she didn’t immediately realize that anything was wrong. Although Carlton-Paget was generally a man of routine, she thought that he may have had to go away on business or to visit family and had forgotten to tell her. She certainly didn’t think it was anything criminal that was keeping him away. The only thing that really felt unusual was that he missed his presentation at the Royal Society. The RS meant a great deal to Dr. Carlton-Paget and she didn’t think he would miss something like that without a serious reason. 

When she got a call a few days later from Dr. Carlton-Paget’s sister inquiring whether he had been to the office it was finally enough to make her go to the police. Despite a clear description and some photographs of Roland supplied by his family, the police still did not connect the disappearance to the dead body in Soho, because that was vice and this was missing persons. It took another week of badgering and contact from the representatives from Fister Pharmaceuticals claiming that they had been defrauded of their money for the police to finally take the disappearance of Roland Carton-Paget seriously. It wasn't until Scotland Yard Detective Samuel Blake checked the missing persons files and that they identified Roland Carlton-Paget as the dead man outside a Soho club for homosexuals. A visit to Roland's home turned up a bloody poker and an empty safe. 

When DI Blake questioned Dr. Carlton-Paget's nurse, family and the Fister representatives, all were hard pressed to identify anyone who might want to kill him but the family and the Fister agent mentioned his long time friendship with Harry Richardson and gave Blake a description. When Blake and his constables went to Richardson’s flat to interview him, they discovered that he had not been seen there or at his job in the city since the day the police found the body in Soho. It was starting to appear that Richardson had murdered Carlton-Paget for the money. Unfortunately for Scotland yard, by the time DI Blake began his search in earnest for Harry Richardson, he and Phyrne had been in the air for 10 days and had already arrived in Singapore.

After a week of coming up empty at railways and ferries, DI Blake decided to adopt his tried and true method of pushing through a roadblock. He gathered up Sergeant Harris and went to his local for a beer and a think. Harris stood the first round but none of the ideas they had seemed to get them any further ahead. While Blake was waiting for the barman to pull the next two pints, he noticed a newspaper clipping pinned to the bar with the headline “Woman Pilot Defies the Odds Flying from Melbourne to London in Near Record Time.” 

“What’s that about?” he asked the publican. 

“Dunno, the wife put it there. Some bird flew a plane from Melbourne or summat.” 

Blake took the pints back to the table and pondered for a bit. Then he instructed Sergeant Harris to start telephoning air fields with Harry Richardson’s description. Later the same afternoon Harris confirmed that someone who looked like Richardson had been seen at Croydon Air Field about two weeks before. Blake and Harris drove to Croydon and determined that that a man matching Harry Richardson's description had left Croydon three weeks ago with the same woman pilot, headed for Melbourne. On his return to Scotland Yard, Blake sent a telegram to the Victoria police:

“Harry Richardson wanted murder LDN STOP Left Croydon with P. Fisher dest. Melbourne STOP Believed dangerous homosexual STOP Desc 6 ft Dk Hr Brn Eyes STOP Ct Scotland Yard if whereabouts known.”

The telegram arrived at the Commissioner’s office three days after Phryne Fisher and Harry Richardson had landed in Melbourne.


	8. A Permanent Change

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jack talks to Hugh about his relationship with Phyrne. Mild sexual references.

“Are you ready for tomorrow? Any more questions?” Mac asked Phyrne as they sat in her parlour. Mac is nursing a scotch but Phryne is crossly playing solitaire since she is not allowed food or drink from now until after the surgery is over. 

“Does it matter? It has to happen whether I am ready or not.”

“So, in the morning, we will go to the University Hospital and you will get a dose of laudanum to relax you, and then succinylcholine to paralyze you so you can’t move. That ought to be a new experience for you. You will then be kept on ether and oxygen to keep you asleep but breathing. The surgery will take about 5 hours.”

“When will I be on my feet again?”

Mac laughed. “Phyrne you were a nurse in France. Don’t be ridiculous. First, you will remain asleep for the rest of the day to promote healing and relieve pain and you will be groggy most of the next day due to more laudanum and exhaustion.”

“And then?”

“And then, we will see. Although it will only affect your chest and arm, the scar will be significant and require time to heal without getting infected. You won’t be able to move your right arm much for a few days or even weeks and you won’t be able to lift heavy objects, swim or otherwise use it very much. Probably 4-6 weeks of rest.”

“I can do that at home, though, right?”

“Assuming you eventually decide to tell your staff that you are back in Melbourne.”

“I plan to, just not quite yet.”

“Why the hesitation?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want them fussing over me.”

“Phyrne, that’s because you don’t want confirmation from anyone else how serious this is. If you see it in their faces, you are afraid you will lose your stoicism.”

“You may be right.”

“I am right and it’s ridiculous. It is serious and you have every right to be anxious and sad. Denying that to yourself is unnecessarily cruel. I am calling Dot, this minute.”

“Don’t you dare.”

“Too late, you can’t stop me.”

Phyrne realized she didn’t want to stop Mac and when Dot appeared in the hall an hour later, Phyrne decompensated completely in Dot’s arms. That was when Mac knew she had done the right thing.

“Don’t worry Miss Phyrne, I will stay with you the whole time. Dr. Mac is a brilliant surgeon and everything will be fine. You’ll see.”

ooo000ooo

“Collins? …. Collins!” Jack called out to his constable several times before a yawning Constable Collins came into his office. 

Jack winked at him, “Not getting much sleep these days are we Collins?”

Hugh Collins blushed. “Not so much sir, I suppose,” he replied. “But last night Dot was called out late to visit a sick relative, so I was up until 2 am waiting for her to come home.” 

“Nothing serious, I hope,” said the Inspector. “She still has a sister working at the Imperial Club, doesn’t she?”

“I don’t think that’s who it was, but she has a lot of sisters, so it could have been anyone of them. She’ll be out late tonight as well, she told me, so I wonder if you would like to grab some nosh down at the pub after work, rather than me trying to fix myself something at home.”

“Fine idea, Collins. I will join you later. First, we need to continue working on those robberies. I noticed that the only people who are ever injured are the staff not the owners. I wonder if there is something more to that.”

“Well, sir, there have been rumours about a group of red raggers trying to organize domestic servants into a union. Maybe there is something we can learn from Miss Fisher’s friends Yates and Johnson.” 

“Good idea, Collins. Ask them to drop around the station later today.” 

ooo000ooo

At University Hospital, the surgery has gone very well and Phyrne has come through with flying colours. Mac is pleased with the way she was able to keep the scar as small and neat as possible. She was also able to get all of the cancerous tissue and Phyrne’s vital signs are strong as she sleeps in the hospital room. Mac left Dot sitting beside her knitting baby booties and saying her rosary. Mac smiled at the thought of little Collins’ running around Wardlow. 

ooo000ooo

At the end of a long but uneventful day, Hugh and Jack headed out to Young and Jacksons for a meal and conversation. Bert and Cec had been wary about involving the police in anything that might disrupt the nascent domestics association, but given that people were getting hurt, they agreed to keep their ears to the ground for anything that might keep their comrades safe.

“So, Collins, how is married life treating you?” Jack asked.

“Sir, I think I was made for it. I can’t say when I have been happier. Dottie is so good to me and I never have to worry that she doesn’t love me anymore.” Jack was happy to hear that, but also felt a twinge of jealousy. He wished he could feel that way about Phyrne, or anybody.

“How are the house renovations coming?” Jack knew that they had moved in to a very small flat but that Miss Fisher had given them some money to help fix it up to be comfortable. 

“Very well, sir, though it is easy to get distracted from painting.” Hugh blushed as he said that. 

Jack laughed. “Well, I remember the same problems when I was a newlywed, Collins.”

Hugh laughed as well, then become more sober. “What happened with Mrs. Robinson, sir, if you don’t mind saying?”

“I wish I could tell you, Collins. I suppose what happened was the war. When I came home, Rosie wasn’t what I wanted anymore. I’m not sure I wanted anyone. I just wanted to be quiet and unhappy. Rosie wanted to move on and start a family. It was untenable for both of us.”

Hugh had only known Jack a short while before Miss Fisher had exploded into their lives and so he had a hard time thinking of DI Robinson as an unhappy person. Not that he would have pegged Robinson as happy go lucky by any stretch, but unhappy wasn’t the description that first came to mind. 

As ever with Hugh, he blundered forward, “Miss Fisher certainly makes you happy, though.” 

“Not a topic I wish to discuss, Constable.”

“Sorry Sir, my apologies.” Hugh shook his head apologetically.

“No, I’m sorry, Hugh. That wasn’t fair to you. You’re right. Miss Fisher does … did … does make me happy. I’m a bit at sixes and sevens right now, Collins. If you don’t mind listening to me ramble, maybe talking to you might help.”

“Of course, Sir, anything to help.”

“Before Miss Fisher left for England, Hugh, I made a rash decision. Not something I do often, as I am sure you know.”

“No, Sir, that is unusual for you. Though not around Miss Fisher, I’ve noticed.”

“Right. Well, I decided to drive out to the airfield to tell her that I loved her. She told me to ‘come after her’, which I think meant to follow her to England. So, I booked passage on the Orient Orsova.”

“The Orsova leaves port tomorrow, Sir.”

“Yes, Collins, it did. And it is apparent that I won't be on it.”

“Why not, Sir?”

“Well, that telegram that you asked me about said that Miss Fisher’s plans had changed and that I was not to travel until further notice. I haven’t had any further notice in almost three weeks.”

“Have you tried to contact her, Sir?”

“No, Collins. I am waiting for her to contact me.”

“But she could be hurt. She could be in trouble. You know what Miss Fisher is capable of.”

“Unfortunately, Collins, I do. And what is the most likely scenario is that Miss Fisher has taken up with another man.” Jack paused. “Or two.”

“Do you love her, Sir?”

“What kind of a question is that, Collins?”

“A direct one, Sir. Do you love her?”

Jack paused again.

“More than anyone I have ever loved, Collins. I have loved Phryne Fisher from the day that she walked into my life.”

“Then you can’t just sit here and do nothing, Sir. I learned that from you. You have to try and get in contact with her. No matter the outcome.”

“Perhaps you are right Collins. Tomorrow when the telegraph office opens, I will send her a message to inquire after her.”

“Sir”

“Yes, Constable?”

“I wouldn’t worry too much. Mrs. Collins, Dottie, tells me that Miss Fisher is mad about you.”

Jack smiled. “Mrs. Collins is a fine woman.”

Jack and Hugh went back to the station after their meal to tidy up some paperwork and get ready for the next day. Thinking about Phyrne put Jack into a reflective mood and he couldn’t get interested in going through the daily reports or work on the annual station budget. He thought he could use the time more effectively considering how to compose a telegram for Phryne that was sufficiently concerned about her well-being but didn’t come off like the begging sod he felt like at the moment. After staring into space for a while, he found himself closing his office door and opening that well-thumbed folder of photographs again. Those pictures had gotten him through many late and lonely nights at the office when he knew that she had a lover visiting at Wardlow. He winced to himself when he remembered the number of times he had brought himself to a physical release while looking at them or thinking about them. Sometimes it was a climax of pure joy when he thought about one of their better adventures and sometimes it was in anger and sadness when he imagined another man enjoying her most intimate company. 

But he knew that sex wasn’t what he wanted from her. Or not the only thing. Of course, he wanted her physically, only a stone statue could be unmoved by that sexual energy. But when he thought of the times he truly felt aroused by her, as in having his whole body and soul singing with electricity, it wasn’t about sex. It was about joy. From the moment that she admonished him for taking the world seriously after the war, he had felt the return of light in his life. She made him laugh, she made him question the rules, she made him misbehave on the side of what was right and just and good. She made him a better man, but more importantly, she made him a happier man. 

So, this jealousy over her lovers wasn’t about the fact that they could have her body, it was his fear that they would take away her mind and her heart. Oh, how desperately he wanted to have her mind and heart. He wanted to make sure she would never, ever want to take that part of herself away. That was why he tried to push her away after he mistakenly thought she had died in a car crash. In all his life, including the years at war, he had never felt such desolation as he had the day he thought she was gone. The price of all the joy she made him feel was the devastation that would come if she were no longer there. He couldn’t do that. He wouldn’t survive. But she wouldn’t let him run away. She fought for him. And in the end, he had surrendered, knowing that if he lost her again, he would die. 

That was the reason he had raced out to the airport when she left for England. He could not live with the pain that would result if he never saw her again. And when she said, “come after me”, it was if his deepest wish had finally come true. 

“Sir, sir,” Collins called as he knocked on the closed door. “There’s a call from the Commissioner’s office for you.”


	9. The Secret is Revealed

Jack picked up the telephone handset on his desk. 

“Robinson?”

“Sir?” 

“We have received a telegram that concerns that woman you spend so much time with. A Miss Fisher.”

Jack turned pale. Collins who couldn’t hear the voice on the phone said “Inspector, are you okay?”

Jack waved Collins away. “Carry on, Commissioner.”

“The telegram says that Miss Fisher left Croydon Air Field on October 28 bound for Melbourne in the company of a man wanted for murder in London. I don’t know how long that flight takes, do you?”

“Fifteen or so days, Sir.” Jack had researched the route after Phyrne had left. 

“Then they should be here by now. Have you heard from her?”

“No, Commissioner.”

“Well, if you do, see that you put her under arrest. This is just the last straw with that woman. Absconding with wanted men across international borders. We have to put an end to it.”

“Of course, Sir. I will see to it.”

Jack hung up the phone and rounded on Collins with savage force.

“Who is Dot visiting at the hospital, again?” 

“Her sister I think. Dr. MacMillan called her and asked her to come.” 

Jack said, “I think she’s visiting Miss Fisher.” 

“But that can’t be Sir, Miss Fisher would have contacted you …”, Collins realized what he was saying and what it meant. 

“I will drive you there, sir, you don’t look fit to do that yourself.” 

Collins drove like the wind from City South to the University Hospital. Mac heard the siren for a few minutes before they arrived and sussed out who it must be. She retrieved Dot from Phyrne’s room and met Jack and Hugh running up the stairs into the foyer.

“Where is she”, Jack shouted, trying to push past her. 

“Where is she! If he has hurt her, I will kill him.” 

“She is safe and well, but you can’t see her.” Mac said, trying to hold him in place. 

“You can’t stop me.” he replied struggling against Dr. MacMillan and Hugh who had realized that Mac did not want him entering the hospital in that condition. 

Dot reached out and quietly took Jack’s hand. “You can’t see her now, Inspector as she is asleep and will be until tomorrow. Go with Dr. MacMillan so she can explain.”

“I will kill him,” Jack said again as he started to calm down and stop resisting Mac and Hugh. 

“I don’t know what or whom you are talking about Jack but calm down and come with me”, Mac commanded him. Her sharp tone brought Jack to his senses and he stopped resisting.

Mac escorted Jack to her office, while Dot explained the situation to Hugh as they sat in the corridor outside Phyrne’s room. 

Jack slumped in a chair in front of Mac’s desk and swallowed the three fingers of scotch that she handed him in one shot. 

“Phyrne has been back for about five days.”

“Why didn’t she contact me?” Jack asked leaning forward and looking Mac hard in the face.

“I don’t know.”

“Because she doesn’t love me anymore.”

“No, Jack, you have that all wrong. It has nothing to do with that. Phryne has breast cancer. I operated on her this morning to remove her right breast.” 

Jack fell back hard in his chair and then grabbed the waste basket just in time before vomiting into it. After a moment, Mac took his handkerchief from his pocket, poured cool water on it and wiped his face and forehead. 

“I thought my greatest fear, Mac, was that I had lost her to another man. But my greatest fear is that I could lose her completely. Tell me that she will be alright. Please, God, let her be alright.”

“She found the lump the day she arrived in London and was diagnosed almost immediately. It was her decision to fly back to Melbourne for me to do the surgery. If it had been up to me, I would have ordered her to stay and have it done there by the experts in Hartley Street. But she insisted on coming home and she insisted on absolute secrecy. 

“She is strong and healthy, Jack. She came through the surgery today as good as any patient I have ever had. I believe I got it all. God willing, she will make a full and complete recovery and be our Phryne Fisher again in no time.”

“I’m not much of a one for God, but thank God for you, Mac.”

“Actually, just thank the University of Edinburgh Medical School.” They both laughed.

“Now tell me what you meant when you said, “I’ll kill him?”

Jack explained about the telegram from Scotland Yard, that Phryne had flown home in the company of a Harold Richardson, who was wanted for murder in London. 

Mac laughed again. “Jack, I can assure you that she had no idea that her passenger was a murderer, or she would have told me. You know how she is about murder cases. She simply thought he was a boring upper-class twit and she was well rid of him at the air field. She even refused to give him a lift into Melbourne, that’s how highly she thought of him.”

“Can I see her?”

“Only through the window. I am letting only Dot sit with her until she wakes up. She doesn’t know that you know, and I would rather she have the opportunity to prepare for seeing you rather than wake up to find you there.”

“I understand.”

As they stand looking through the door into her room, they see Phryne move her head and hands as if she is dreaming and she appeared to be calling out, although they couldn’t hear her.

“Laudanum can cause some impressive dreams. I wouldn’t worry that she is in any distress,” Mac said when she saw tears trickling down Jack’s face. 

Jack has seen Phryne in some sticky situations, but never seen her this exposed and vulnerable and it moves him to his core. All he wants to do is take her in his arms and protect her. As Mac walks him away from Phyrne’s room, she tells him that Phryne will be awake but quite groggy the next day. He asks if he can come back in the morning and Mac confirms that he can. 

“But the best thing you can do for her at this point is to be officious. Don’t come back all doe eyed and lovey dovey. That will upset and anger her. Come back ‘full inspector’ and tell her you have to interview her as a witness in a murder, which by the way is true. Bring her whatever evidence you may have so she can feel like she is solving the case with you. Don’t push her, Jack, play hard to get and let her come to you. Trust me, she will.”

As he rode beside Hugh on the way home he reflected that he had played hard to get for 2 years and it hadn’t helped. Hugh, rather wisely, noted that this was quite different, and he thought Mac’s advice was sound.


	10. Witness to Murder

Before he went back to the hospital the next morning, Inspector Robinson made some additional inquiries. The Commissioner’s Office had telegraphed to Scotland Yard that Harold Richardson was confirmed arrived in Melbourne and Scotland Yard had telegraphed in return that he was wanted for the murder of Roland Carlton-Paget, a physician. They also advised that there had been a large quantity of money stolen. They had not yet discovered any apparent motive for the murder beyond robbery. They also confirmed that the body had been found behind a club for homosexuals but did not know if that had anything to do with the murder otherwise. 

“Good morning Miss Fisher”, the Inspector’s words dragged Phryne back into reality from her groggy breakfast with Dot. Her heart leapt into her throat and she grabbed her blankets and dragged them up to her throat like a shy virgin. She frowned at herself for that but didn’t lower the blankets either. Summoning up all of her wits, she said brightly, “Jack, how lovely of you to join us for breakfast. Toast?”

“I’m sorry, Miss Fisher, but I am not here for social reasons. I have to question you in relation to a murder.” 

“A murder? I’m sorry, Jack, but it couldn’t have been me, you see I’ve been out cold for two days.” 

“Well, it appears you may have transported the murderer to Australia in your aeroplane and I need to know if that was wittingly or unwittingly.” 

The conversation was causing Phryne to feel something she hadn’t in three weeks – unmitigated happiness. 

“Well,” she said, “I never wittingly fly murderers around the world, so I can assure you that it was completely unwitting. But I must say that Davey never really struck me as the murdering type. A bit too dense, I would have thought.” 

“Intelligence has never been a requirement of a murderer, in my experience, Miss Fisher. You called him Davey. The man we are looking for is Harold Richardson.” 

“That explains something,” she said, “his only piece of luggage was a carry-all and it had the initials HR on the handle. He told me he had bought it in a second-hand shop when he couldn’t believe something of that quality was being sold so cheaply. He didn’t strike me as the sort who shopped second-hand.”

Mac winked at Dot and signaled that they should leave the Inspector and Miss Fisher alone. 

“How did he come to be in your plane, Miss Fisher?” 

“That’s a good question, Inspector. When I went to Croydon to arrange to fly home, the airfield manager refused to let me file a flight plan because it was too dangerous to make the flight alone. Davey conveniently turned up and said he had always wanted to fly around the world and would pay for his share of the petrol and accommodations. I was in too much of a hurry to care what his motives were.”

Jack desperately wanted to ask her why she was in such a hurry but knew he couldn’t. Instead he said, “so you were perfectly prepared to get into a plane with a man you had never met and fly around the world for 15 days?” 

“Well, I had my gun,” she said coquettishly. Jack rolled his eyes in his characteristic way and it made her heart sing. 

“Tell me what you know about this Davey character. Even if it was an alias, he may have let something useful slip that will help us find him.” 

Phryne told him about the way he always kept his carry-all in sight even at night. Jack speculated on why she would know that and then decided he didn’t want to ask. 

“He mainly talked about sports and business. He said he was hoping to someday become independent of his family, so he wouldn’t have to do what he was told anymore. I believe he said he worked in a bank in the City. Actually, at one point he said that what he had in his carry-all was worth its weight in gold.” 

“Did he say what it was?”

“No and he would never leave it alone, so I never got a chance to check. You know me, Jack, secrets are like catnip.”

“By the way, Jack, you haven’t said who he murdered.” 

Jack consulted his notes, “A Dr. Roland Carlton-Paget?” 

Phryne cried out, “Oh, no” and Mac ran back into the room from the corridor where she had been chatting with Dot.  
She shot a look at Jack and asked Phyrne, “is everything okay?” 

“Roland is dead.” All of the thoughts about the cancer that had been banished from her mind by the banter with Jack came rushing back. Roland was like an anchor to life, even if he was no longer her surgeon. He had given her the motivation to fight to live. 

“You knew the deceased?” Jack said, incredulous, thinking ‘of course she did, she knows everyone’. 

Mac intervened, “Dr. Carlton-Paget was Phyrne’s doctor in London.” Looking directly at Phryne, defiantly, she continued, “he diagnosed her cancer.” 

That was the cue Jack needed to be able to talk about what no one would talk about, “Phryne?” he said quietly, looking at her face. Phryne nodded and then burst into sobs. 

“I didn’t know… what to say to … you, I didn’t know … what you would … say or do … or if … you would ….”. Then sitting upright, she ordered everyone including Jack out of the room. 

“Phryne …” Jack said. 

“Please leave Jack, just leave.” 

Jack and Mac left the room and Mac signaled for Dot to go back in. Through the glass window, they could see Dot holding her as she was wracked with sobbing. 

Mac said to Jack “depression is very common for anyone coping with cancer. It will probably be harder for her than for many because the threat of death by something this insidious is far more frightening to her than sudden death in the excitement of solving crime. Most women also struggle to believe that they are beautiful any more when they have lost a breast.”

“She will always be the most beautiful…”

Mac cut him off. “Phryne’s beauty defined her in many ways. This will be very hard to cope with. But as I said, the best thing you can do for her is to not be her lover but to be her partner in crime solving. We both saw her light up like the old Phyrne when you talked about the case. Keep doing that and she will be right as rain. Come back after tomorrow and carry on.”

Jack reluctantly left the hospital with a plan to return as soon as he could do so without upsetting Phyrne even more. Back at City South, there was another message from Scotland Yard with more details about the business relationship between Harry Richardson and Roland Carlton-Paget.


	11. Phyrne Makes a Plan and Jack Isn't Sure About It

“Miss Fisher”, Jack said as he put his head around the door, “I really do need your help on this case. You knew the victim and the accused. You have more of a lead on this than any of the cops, me, or Scotland Yard.” 

“Of course, Jack, I want to help. I was just a bit shocked earlier that Roland had been murdered, and these sedatives are hell on one’s emotions.” 

“Of course, Miss Fisher, it is perfectly understandable.” 

“Let’s begin with what we know so far,” Jack said. “Carlton-Paget was killed by Harold or Harry Richardson in his home. His safe was emptied out. Fister Pharmaceuticals told DI Blake of Scotland Yard that the doctor had been paid a £50,000 advance for work on a radium-based treatment for cancer." He paused. “Sorry.” 

“It’s okay, Jack. I’m not made of glass.” 

“Right. Harry was Roland’s business partner and stood to gain a lot from the research. That’s what’s so puzzling. Why steal the advance if the research would be more lucrative?” 

“I know why and now it makes sense why Davey – I mean Harold came to Croydon. He must have been the man in the waiting room when I told Roland I was flying to Australia. Roland was telling me that his research had confirmed work from Germany and America that radium could temporarily kill the cancer but over the long term if was poisonous and would cause debilitating harm to the patients. He was going to blow the whistle and go public as well as give the advance back. Harry must have killed him to prevent that.”

“You didn’t say that Harry had been at the office.” 

“I only realized that now that you explained that background to me. I was … let’s say distracted, to notice anything but that there was a man there,” Phryne replied. 

“Now that I think of it, Harry would have put Roland’s body in Soho for a couple of reasons. First, it would delay the investigation as we know how seriously the police take the death of inverts.” 

Jack winced. “You know that I am not that kind of police officer.” 

“Yes, perhaps not you. But it certainly had that effect in this case.” 

Jack reflected that Blake had almost intimated that to him in the long telegram that he had received that morning. 

Phyrne went on. “But perhaps he put Roland there because it was a place they were both familiar with, if you understand me.” 

“Roland and Jack were homosexuals?” Jack asked.

“That would certainly explain why Davey seemed unmoved by my feminine wiles.” Jack swallowed hard. Phyrne noticed and gave him an impatient look. 

“Jack, you of all people should know that there are very few men who can resist me even when I’m not trying.” 

“Were you trying?” 

“I am not going to answer that,” she pouted. He loved it when she pouted. 

Phryne sat up suddenly, “I have an idea”. She then winced at the sharp pain in her stitches. That reminded her of the surgery and she looked away from Jack so he couldn’t see her feelings on her face. She had been very careful to hold a pillow across her chest when she was in bed. She wasn’t sure if it was to hide her missing breast from others or from herself. 

Jack reached out and put his hand on her arm. “Are you okay, do you need to rest?” 

“No,” she snapped, “I’m just fine.”

“Then what’s the idea?”. 

“Don’t panic until I explain it completely.” 

“I don’t like the sound of that.” 

“My dear friend Mr. Featherstonehaugh owns a club you may have heard of, Inspector?” 

“The Blue Cat, yes, I know it.” 

Phryne went on, “there are not very many places in Melbourne for men like Harry to let their hair down, as it were. I expect he will have tracked down the Blue Cat fairly quickly on arriving. My bet is that he spends his time there between trying to find a place to cash in his formula.”

“Okay, I will talk to Featherstonehaugh and see whether he has been there.” 

“Oh no, that’s not my idea and it probably wouldn’t work. Even if Harry is wanted for something that bad, Mr. Featherstonehaugh will not turn him over to you just like that. It would be bad for business.”

Jack snarled, “it would be worse for business to be harbouring murderers.”

“Of course, it would, Jack, but we both know that you showing up like that will be interpreted as you putting Harry in the frame just to bust him for sodomy.”

Jack sighed. He knew she was right, even though he did feel a strong sympathy for the members of the Blue Cat. They made him worry all the more about Daniel. 

“So then, Miss Fisher, what’s the plan?” She cocked her head at him and winked. 

“Oh no, Miss Fisher, no way.” 

“Come on Jack, you don’t have to do anything except work at the bar. I will contact Signor Antonio and explain the whole thing. You are right, he won’t want murderers in his establishment, but he will be much happier to have you there under cover than in plain sight. Surely a night or two of acting won’t ruin your manly reputation. Think of it as another opportunity to test your gifts on the boards.”


	12. Mac Tracks Down Some Dubious Doctors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short interlude of a chapter.

At Phyrne’s request, Mac began asking around among the other doctors at the hospital and her more discreet friends in the College of Physicians and Surgeons about medicos who might be amenable to a “get rich quick” opportunity. She also made a list of the pharmaceutical companies who dealt in cancer drugs. She gave that list to Constable Collins who began making phone inquiries to see if any had been approached by Harry Richardson. 

Phyrne had made the requests after Jack had returned to his office to await confirmation that Signor Antonio would be amenable to his infiltration of the Blue Cat Club. 

“It appears that Roland may have been in the club,” she told Mac. 

Mac shakes her head. “So that’s why it took so long to figure out that he was dead. Forbidden love.”

“But that’s not why I need your help,” Phyrne says. “Roland was in a partnership with Harold Richardson, probably going by the name David or Davey Rhys-Jones. They were experimenting on radium treatments for cancer. As I told you, Roland told me he was planning to blow the whistle which would end Harold’s chances for great wealth.”

Mac noted, “the drug company would be out a lot of money, too. Fister Pharmaceuticals are deeply invested in this research and wouldn’t have been happy with Roland’s plan.”

Phryne thought about that. “You may be right. But, I doubt they knew, or know yet about Roland’s plan to scupper the research. It all happened so fast. Roland told me on October 17, and Roland was murdered that night. Harold is counting on no one knowing that Roland was going to break the story.”

“We need you to make some inquiries among your colleagues. Which doctors would be receptive to an offer from Harold to take over the research? And what drug companies in Australia would stand to gain from this work? Harold is probably approaching them already. It might be our best chance to locate him.”

“I can think of a few who are less than honourable and carry some significant debt. Leave it with me.”

ooo000ooo

While Mac and Phryne worked on inquiries on the medical side, Collins had discovered that there was a theft of some radium from a chemical company in Perth. Jack pondered the meaning of that. Perhaps Harold Richardson had a hand in that theft, but it was curious as to why he would need to steal the radium, rather than just purchase it?

“Collins, Miss Fisher said that the man she flew back from England was using the name David or Davey Rhys-Jones. See if you can find out where he might be staying. We also need to get a good look at him, so if you can get a description and possibly a photograph, that would be ideal.” 

About an hour later, Collins confirmed that Rhys-Jones was at the Seascape Hotel. He didn’t get a photograph but was able to get a good description of him. 

“Tall, Sir, about 6 feet, fit looking with longish dark hair. Well-dressed. Apparently, according to the desk clerk, he came in with only one suitcase but he has been acquiring new clothes since he arrived. She said, he seemed like he had money.”

“Thank you, Collins. Have Wilkins, stake out the hotel and let us know Richardson’s movements. I especially want to know if he has any engagements that look like business meetings whether at the hotel or elsewhere in the city.”


	13. Jack at the Blue Cat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack goes undercover in a most unconventional gentleman's club. Mild m/m references.

“Phyrne,” exclaimed Mr. Featherstonehaugh, "to what do I owe the pleasure of hearing your voice?” 

“My dear, I only wish I could see you in person, but I am afraid I am a bit indisposed. I have a favour to ask of you. In fact, I want to call in an old favour, if I may.” 

“That sounds serious.” “It is. You may be harbouring a murderer in the ranks of your club.” Mr. Featherstonehaugh snorted, “that old saw? Surely not you Phryne.”

“I am quite serious. I recently returned from England and my travelling companion, David Rhys-Jones is wanted for questioning in a murder in London. A murder of another man of your temperament.” Featherstonehaugh paused and then said, “go on.”

“He is suspected of killing a friend of mine, Dr. Roland Carlton-Paget over money and an investment. He offered to accompany me on my flight back to Australia last month on very short notice. I expect that he may have sought out the Blue Cat as a place for comfort and refuge when he arrived in Melbourne.”

Mr. Featherstone said, “we do have a visiting member called Davey Jones, recently arrived from London.” 

“Here is my idea. Let Jack Robinson go undercover as a new barman, so he can watch Jones in action and perhaps elicit enough of a confession to have grounds to arrest him.”

“Out of the question, Phyrne. I have lots of respect for Inspector Robinson, but if my patrons knew that I had let a police inspector infiltrate, I would be out of business.”

“What if he promised not to lay any charges for anything but murder? It won’t be good for your business if you could have helped catch Jones and didn’t. Heavens, he may be the sort to murder your sort for fun. We don’t know if Harry was in the club, or just knew that Roland was.”

“Wait, you know Inspector Robinson?” Phryne said after a moment’s reflection. 

“Of course, I do. You can’t be in my business if you don’t know the police on sight.” 

“But you said you respected him.” 

“The Inspector is very discreet when he is able and allows my patrons to continue to live their lives. For the most part we trust him. But we know that he does occasionally have to prosecute the law when there is no other choice, so we keep a respectful distance.” Phryne tucked that nugget of information about the Inspector away for future reflection. She did remember the case where he allowed her to destroy the plates of compromising pictures of her friend Charles. At the time she considered it a favour to her, but now she wondered what Jack’s views really were. Of course, she was certain that he was only into women, but where had he come to have sympathy for the other predilection?

Mr. Featherstonehaugh considered Phyrne’s request. “I will agree, but you have to help him with his disguise. My clients are very nervous about police and many of them know the rozzers on sight. He will have to be convincing.” Phryne got a wicked smile as she contemplated that. 

“I will do my best. Can he start tonight?” 

“Not tonight, but tomorrow. I need to be prepared. Have him come to the club early, around 5 pm. I will show him the ropes and explain the terms.”

Phyrne sent Dot off with a few errands including to pick up a particular suit from her friend Charles, her gardenia perfume and a snappy blue scarf that she could make into an ascot. 

When Jack returned the next day, Phryne was out of bed and sitting at a table covered in cosmetics. “Getting dressed for the evening, Miss Fisher?” Jack asked. 

“Well, you are. Mr. Featherstonehaugh agreed to our plan, but he insisted that the disguise be impenetrable, and I promised to work my magic. Come here, Inspector.” Jack groaned. 

An hour later, Jack Robinson was unrecognizable as a police inspector. Charles’ suit was tailored beautifully but had just enough extra style about the lapels to indicate that its wearer was unconventional. Phryne had tied on the blue ascot and splashed Jack with enough gardenia that he complained, “I smell like a florist.” 

“Precisely. There are not very many ways that men can indicate their predilections to each other and scent is one. You usually smell charmingly like a man who is considering a quick round of footy, not one that is just back from the opera. Musky, not floral. They would smell you a mile off and throw you out. Besides, you don’t smell like a florist, you smell wonderful.”

She also tousled his usually firmly pomaded hair and let its natural curl have its way. She hadn’t ever seen his hair fully in its natural state. It was most pleasant. 

“Now,” she said, “you need to work on your accent. You are not there as a wealthy patron or as a rent boy, but as a bar man. You need to sound a bit more working class, but not too low-born. What have you got?” 

“Too right, Miss Fisher, born and raised by a digger, I was. Managed to get to Melbourne before the footy-boys made a mince-meat of me.” 

“Perfect,” she said as she clapped. “Perhaps you should have considered the boards.” Jack groaned.

ooo000ooo

Jack arrived at the Blue Cat as requested at 5 pm. Mr. Featherstonehaugh laughed at the disguise and said, “Miss Fisher is a wonder. But you know I am not very happy about this situation.” Jack replied, “We know, and I am grateful for your help. I can’t say I am all that happy about it myself.” Featherstonehaugh laughed again, “don’t worry Inspector, we will keep your honour intact, as it were, though you are rather delectable in that get up and some of my members may wish to ‘try it on for size’. Please be polite in your deflections.” Jack laughed, though a bit nervously it must be said. 

Jack had never been in the Blue Cat except during a raid. He was surprised at the range of clientele, including a few senior police officers and politicians he knew. He kept as far out of their range as he could in case they recognized him, even in mufti. He was also interested in the number of men dressed as women. Some didn’t pull it off very well, though he expected that wasn’t really the intent, but for a few he had to do a double take as they were very convincing as women. “That’s a lesson to you, Jack Robinson”, he thought to himself.

A few hours into the evening, as Jack poured another Rickey for another older man who leered at him over the bar, he spotted Harold Richardson come in the door. He also noticed as expected from Phyrne’s description, that he was, in fact, carrying the carry-all. “It really must contain gold,” he thought to himself. The leering gentleman saw Jack’s gaze shift and sighed. “Yes, he is a lovely one, all terribly Lords and all that, but he’s not an easy one to bed. But maybe you’ll have more luck, pretty as you are.” Jack winced internally. He was getting used to the gratuitous leering, but still found the compliments a bit trying. He wondered how women put up with it all day, every day. Phryne seemed to relish in it, he thought. He remembered how Mac had told him that Phyrne was quite saddened by the thought of not being beautiful. Of course, she was still beautiful to him, but there was no doubt that a lot of her power over men came from her body. He filed that thought away for future reference as to ways to restore her confidence. And he needed to change the subject. Thinking of her in this highly charged environment was causing certain physical effects that would be embarrassing for a cop on duty in the Blue Cat. Lucky for Jack at that moment Harry came over to the bar and asked for whiskey. Jack poured the shot and said, “not from around here?” 

“What’s it to you?”

“Just makin’ conversation, mate.”

“Well, I’m not your mate or the mate of any of you colonials.”

“Charming,” Jack replied. He held out his hand to shake, “George Sanders. At yer service.”

Harold laughed and shook Jacks hand. “I guess that puts me in my place.” 

“We ‘ave to stick together out here in the colonies, it’s not as easy a life as Soho, or so I ‘ear,” Jack said. 

“Not so easy in Soho either. But you may be right.”

“So, what brings you to the colonies, then?”

“What’s it to you?”

“Didn’t we just have this conversation?”

“Business, but not the kind a bar man would be interested in.”

“Guess not.”

“But if a fellow needed to do something discreet around here, how might that be arranged?”

“Hey, now, I’m not on the game if that’s what you’re asking.”

“You have the looks that’s for sure, but no, if I wanted that, it’s easy enough to arrange.”

Jack was thinking as quickly as he could about what might entice Harold to divulge his discreet errand. “Well, this ain’t my only gig, mind. During the day I work delivery. Sometimes the packages are, well, you might say, discreet. Don’t ask, don’t tell, as it were.” 

“I see. And if I had a package that needed to get from one place to the other without anyone knowing where it came from and who it went to, you could do it.”

“Too right, mate. That’s my specialty. There’s this judge who needs to have a certain ‘package’ if you take my meaning, delivered to his back door occasionally. Georgie here is the man for the job.” 

“It could be dangerous, or the cops could be interested.” 

“Child’s play.” Jack replied. 

“What’s the rate?”

“Depends on the package. Is it animal, mineral or vegetable?” Harry looked puzzled.

“Does it talk, or will it explode?”

Harry laughed, “neither.”

“£50.”

“Done. You can pick it up at this address tomorrow at 12 noon. The package will have the address where you take it. It has to be there by 2 pm. I will pay you when it’s done.”

“Half now, half after,’ Jack said. Harold peeled £25 out of his billfold.

Mr. Featherstonehaugh quickly came over. “George, you are not trying to solicit in the club, are you? I told you it’s not permitted.” Antonio was mostly trying to get Jack’s goat, but also was noticing that money was changing hands and that Jack had spent too much time talking to Harry. He needed to attend to other patrons or his job as a bar man would look suspicious. 

“Too right, boss. Nice talking to you. What did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t” said Harry who left and took his carry-all with him through a curtain which Jack knew from his raids, led to the area where the soliciting was allowed. 

“Time for my nature-break, Sir?” Jack inquired. Featherstonehaugh nodded and Jack left the bar and headed for the curtained area where he hoped to eavesdrop on any private conversations that Richardson might have, assuming they weren’t of an intimate nature. 

“Did you get it?” Jack heard Harry whispering.

“I got it” a man with an educated accent replied. “My contact at Radco was willing to make about 200 gms of the stuff go missing for a reasonable fee. I expect to get that back from the eventual profits off this venture. But I still fail to see why we had to steal it. Why not just buy it?”

“We are already cutting the profits four ways”, Richardson replied, “you, me, Botany Bay and the rich bastard. We don’t need to dilute the profits any further. We don’t actually need that much of the stuff.”

“Unfortunately, there is a small wrinkle,” the man with Richardson said, Radco reported the missing radium to the police. My friend tried to make it look like an oversight, but it seems that radium is the kind of commodity that the authorities get a little anxious about.”

Jack nodded to himself as the conversation confirmed that the missing radium was connected to Richardson. He wondered who the other partners were, but he hesitated to put his head around the curtain. Richardson was clearly paranoid enough and he needed to keep his cover for the delivery job the next day. 

When the evening was over at the club he went back to the station to find a message from Phryne. “I know its late, but please come by and tell me how it went. Mac will let you sneak past Matron.”

Jack removed the ascot and combed back his hair before heading up to Miss Fisher’s room. She was dozing lightly but woke up when she smelled the gardenia. She reached out for his hand and he held it, marveling at how nice it felt in his. 

“So?” she asked.

“Mainly uneventful. My manly honour is intact. But I have a job delivering a package tomorrow for Harry. I’m to pick it up at this address and deliver it to the address that will be marked on it. I think it could be some stolen radium that was reported missing a couple of days ago.

Phryne looked at the note. “Nothing unusual about that address.” 

“No,” Jack replied, “it’s a post office.”

Phyrne continued, “we have news too. Mac made some inquiries among her medical colleagues. Turns out that a Dr. Francis Frederick has been talking up a new venture in which he expects to make a fortune. Apparently, this Dr. Frederick is in a bit deep on the horses and struggles to keep his practice afloat. It’s not that he’s a bad doctor or even a bad sort, but just has bad judgement about anything not medical. She also thinks he might not know or care about the dangers of the radium drug. She also made some inquiries about the drug companies that might be interested in a new product like this. There is a new company just formed in the last few years by a Sydney apothecary trying to take some business away from the big American and European companies. They are called Botany Bay Pharmaceuticals and they have been visiting local physicians recently with some of their products. It’s possible Frederick is in touch with them on behalf of Richardson.”

“Miss Fisher, you can out-sleuth me even under sedation. But that explains the conversation I overheard. Richardson was talking to another man in the ‘private’ area of the club. I didn’t see who that was but they mentioned Botany Bay and the ‘rich bastard’. An investor possibly?”

“Did the other man sound like a bit of a toff?” Mac had come back into the room as they were talking.

“Yes, I would characterize it that way.” 

“Then that could be Dr. Frederick. It looks like the pieces of the puzzle are coming together.”

“However, speaking of sedation, Inspector, my patient needs her rest. You can come back tomorrow.”

“Of course, Dr. MacMillan. Good night, ladies.” Jack walked past Mac on the way out. “My Inspector, you do smell divine.” Jack winced. 

“Jack,” Phyrne called to him. 

“Miss Fisher?” 

“Don’t wash or change your hair for tomorrow. You need to be credible if Harry tails you. You can borrow a workman’s dustcoat from Cec in order to look more the part of a delivery man. Tell him that I suggested it.” 

“Thanks for the tip, Miss Fisher.”


	14. Jack Visits for Breakfast

The next morning, after borrowing not just the dustcoat but the cab from Bert and Cec, Jack came by the hospital after breakfast to talk to Phyrne before the delivery. He told himself it was for the case, but he really just wanted to see her. He had never felt so protective of her. It wasn’t as if she needed much protection, but there was a new vulnerability to her that called to him like a siren. He had been pleased at how much happier and better she seemed yesterday.

Her door was closed when he approached but he could see through the window that she was out of bed. That was a good thing, he thought. Before he opened the door or showed himself at the window, he snuck a glance in to see what she was doing. She was standing at the mirror with her top off. He could see over her shoulder that she was contemplating her stitches and her breast. The angry, red scar where her right breast had been ran from under her arm to the middle of her chest. He supposed that Mac had done a good job, in that the scar was clean and neat, but it was still jarring to look at. Phryne’s other breast looked as he remembered it from seeing her fan dance. He usually smiled when he recalled that evening. But this morning, he could also see the sadness in her face and the tears on her cheeks. 

He had been contemplating for a couple of days Mac’s comments about how Phyrne believed she was no longer beautiful because of the surgery, so he made a risky decision at that moment. He moved into the room quietly and came up behind her. He reached around her and gently traced the outline of the scar under his index finger. She didn’t move a muscle as he did this and continued to stare straight ahead into the mirror. He looked directly into the reflection of her eyes as he placed his other hand over her left breast and felt an electric shock move through both of their bodies. Turning her towards him, he bent his head down and gently kissed her scar from the top to the bottom. He had removed his hat as he came into the room and Phryne put her hands into his loose curls while he kissed her. 

He stood up and pulled away. She looked puzzled and then he began to remove his dustcoat, shirt and singlet. She tried to leer but found she could only gaze at him fondly. Then he put her arms around his waist and she felt the scarring on the small of his back. With a questioning look, she turned him around and saw what he wanted her to see, extensive burn scars along the small of his back. He turned back and said “I was blown into a hot machine gun barrel at Pozieres and the steam from the water-cooling unit burned me. I was 4 months in hospital in England.” He tipped her chin to look up at him and he said, “scars are not about weakness, Phryne, they are about bravery.” Then he bent down and kissed her tears away before she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him ardently. And then grimaced from the pain of raising her arm. 

Mac watched the scene from the doorway. She took that moment to stride in officiously. “Machine gun burn?” 

“Yes, Pozieres.” 

“I treated rather more of those than I care to remember. One more thing …” 

“Yes?” said Jack. 

“My patient is not cleared for takeoff and I don’t want you ruining my sewing job.” 

“Point taken,” Jack laughed. 

“Oh Mac, you are no fun,” Phryne said in a whiny voice.

“You can have fun, or you can die of sepsis, your choice.” Mac stared her down before they all three started laughing. 

“Mac, I think I want to go home and recuperate there. If I promise to be good and keep my wheels down, and if Dot will be my nurse, will you bail me out of here?” 

“Only if you let me come twice a day to change the dressing, not leave the house for crime solving exploits and keep those wheels down for six weeks.” 

“Guides honour,” Phryne said, holding up her best salute. 

“I will call Mr. Butler and let him know to expect you,” Mac said, grudgingly.


	15. Dot's Sewing Project

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dot out-invents the real inventors of the period and in which Phyrne tells Dot about the birds and the bees. Explicit sexual references, but no sex.

Dot was very upset when she arrived at Dr. Macmillan’s the first night she found out Phryne was back and had been diagnosed with cancer. She knows that the woman she is now is because Miss Fisher had confidence in her and raised her up to be brave, smart and resourceful. But she is also somewhat unsettled at how fragile her mentor is and how under the surface there is a woman who is frightened of how she will be when she can no longer rely on her great beauty. Dot knew that she could never rely on being a great beauty, but Hugh certainly thought she was the prettiest girl he knew. 

So, now that she has the chance to take care of Miss Fisher, she is determined to help her regain her confidence and strength. 

As she watched Mac dressing Phyrne’s incision after the surgery, she had an idea of one tangible way she could help. She knew a woman at her church who had also had a mastectomy and inquired how she ‘presented herself’. The woman, an older spinster, had showed her a bandeau with lumps of fabric sewn in to mimic breasts. Dorothy examined it and thought it was a good idea for a middle-aged lady but not quite what was needed for Miss Fisher. She had also inquired at Madam Fleuri’s dress salon and was told about the American “Bosom Form” which was basically a rubber suction cup that fit inside a bra. While this might work well for women who wore brassieres and bandeaux, it didn’t seem quite right either. Miss Fisher had a particular penchant for going out without either and several of her more beautiful gowns could not accommodate that sort of conventional lingerie.

While she was draining cheese in a cheesecloth, she got an inspiration. Dot had become familiar with some of the popular forms of family planning from Miss Fisher and thought that the rubber used for condoms might be just the ticket. 

She blushed a bit when she asked Cec and Bert to try and find her a sheet of the same kind of rubber. Since the two cabbies didn’t know about Miss Fisher’s condition, they simply assumed that Dot was interested in the item for personal use. They did think it was a little odd that she also asked them for a bucket of sand. 

Sitting at the dining room table in the apartment she now shared with Hugh, and starting with the cheesecloth as a prototype, Dot began trying to fashion a breast shape that was natural looking and malleable. She smiled as she worked, remembering Miss Fisher’s instructions to her on the afternoon of her wedding day. 

Phyrne had helped Dot get dressed for the hastily called wedding. 

“So, Dot, are you ready for tonight?” 

“Certainly, Miss,” Dot replied a bit nervously. 

“No, I mean really ready. Do you know what is going to happen?” 

“Well, I suppose that Hugh will want to … No. I don’t really. I mean I know that he will want to have intercourse with me, but I don’t quite know what that means.”

“Well, first, you need to tell me that you also want to have intercourse with him. I assume that you do since you are marrying him, but it is always good to check. Just because you are married doesn’t mean you have to say yes every time.” Dot blushed.

“Alright, we can assume that you are planning to say yes tonight. When Hugh kisses you, do you feel wetness and aching in your vagina?” 

“Miss Fisher!!” 

“That’s a yes, then.”

“Do you know what that means, besides feeling wonderful?” Dot shook her head. Phryne looked around her dressing table and picked up a hair brush. She made a ring with her thumb and forefinger and pushed the handle of the brush towards them. 

“Miss Fisher,” Dot cried and turned away. 

“Turn back, Dot, this is important. This is how your body will keep you safe.” Dot turned back. “You see how the brush can’t get through the ring as is. The aching you feel is the ring getting larger. The wetness,” Phyrne reached for some face cream to rub on her fingers, “is your body wetting the surface so that the hairbrush can make it through the ring without tearing or hurting. If you don’t feel either of those sensations, then you need to stop. There are ways to ‘encourage’ them to happen if they haven’t happened naturally.” Dot thought her face must be as red as a beet at this point. She worried that she would look just the same in her marriage bed later on that day. 

“There is a catch, however,” Phryne continued, undeterred. “The first time, it will still hurt because there is, for no sensible reason I can think of, a flap of skin covering the entrance to your vagina. The first time Hugh enters you,” Dot covered her face, “he will break the skin. It will hurt and there will be blood. But after that is over, I assure you Dot, you will have the most wonderful sensations imaginable. Do you feel all tingling and weak when you kiss Hugh?” Dot nodded. “Well this is like a ride on the Great Scenic Railway by comparison.” 

Dot turned away and pulled her dress over her slip and started adjusting her panache. 

“Now, I don’t know how experienced Hugh is, though my senses tell me not very.” Phyrne was looking into the mirror and combing her hair as she spoke. “Jack may be providing him with a bit of advice, though I can’t tell whether Jack has had many lovers or not. Anyway, Hugh may or may not know that there are lots of other places on a woman’s body that can create magic. So, I am telling you. If he seems at a loss, you can suggest them. For instance, the back of the neck is a miraculous place for kissing. When Hugh kisses you, do your nipples perk up?” 

“Miss Fisher, please?” 

“I will take that as a yes. Well, they will love being actually kissed themselves. And so, will Hugh’s. … For pete’s sake stop being so embarrassed. What did you think lovers did together? They explore each other. You need to kiss every inch of his body.” 

“Miss Fisher!” 

“Yes, Dot, every inch and he needs to kiss you. You know how marvelous it feels when you get all moist and squirmy? The only body part that feels better there than Hugh’s penis. … Yes, Dot, that is the correct terminology … is a man’s lips. Oh for heaven’s sake are you going to faint?’’ Dot fanned herself. “Fine, that’s enough for tonight. But you do know, Dot, that you can ask me anything, anytime.” 

“Yes, Miss Fisher,” Dot replied weakly. 

Dot’s wedding night had been wonderful and she would be eternally grateful for Phryne’s pep talk. So, she felt that she owed her this project. Dot had tried a number of ways to shape the cheesecloth into something like a breast and had finally figured out that it had to be like a ball but not quite round so that the weight of the sand would make it slightly pendulous when hanging down but flat like a sunny-side up egg when lying on her back. After a few experiments, she decided that the best model was a small pouch of latex containing sand surrounded by a larger pouch containing silk fabric. The fabric would feel more natural than the sand, but the sand would give it the right weight and malleability. The latex rubber would give it the right sense of springiness when walking or, she blushed, when touched. Finally, she would sew it into a silk cover that could be washed but would also feel nice against the skin.  
She was working on her invention when Hugh came home. He saw that her face was a bit flushed, he took the opportunity to take her in his arms and suggest an early night. She explained what she was working on and he blushed. 

“I guess I never really thought about what it would be like for Miss Fisher not to have a breast. What a good idea.” 

Dot placed her invention into his hand and asked him whether it felt like a breast. Hugh grinned and reached out for Dot’s breast saying, “I need something to compare it to.” After a pause, he said, “it’s not bad. Not as good as the real thing, but then nothing compares to you, Mrs. Collins.” Hugh took her hand to lead her to their bedroom, but she resisted and said, “I want to, but I need to finish this before Miss Fisher decides to leave the hospital.”

Dot had seen Phyrne’s breasts many times and she had her various bras and bandeaux to use for measurements. She also studied the Sarcelle painting in order to get the nipple right. This was the trickiest bit. Without a nipple the breast wouldn’t look right, but the nipple couldn’t look like Phyrne was in a constant state of arousal, though Dot wondered whether that might actually be true. So, she landed on a nipple that would be easy to flatten under a bandeau but be a bit scandalous if Phryne didn’t cover it. She coloured that bit of silk slightly pinker as well. 

The final touch was to find a way to attach it to the body so that it would stay in place but not be too uncomfortable. She knew that Phyrne would still want to wear strapless gowns but thought that giving up backless ones might not be too much of a hardship. So, she took a couple of Miss Fishers’ older but still excellent bandeaux and went to work cutting a hole for the left breast and sewing a pocket for the new right one. 

After Jack left the hospital to go and pick up his package from Harry Richardson, Dot came in for her normal visit with Miss Fisher. 

Phryne said, “Dot we are going home today, bring me my most ill-fitting and loose sailor dress. I think that’s all that will work for now.

“Actually, Miss Fisher, I have something for you.” She handed her a package. When Phryne opened it, her eyes were wet but she was smiling. “

Dot, you are a genius. Let’s try it on.” It took a bit of fiddling to avoid damaging the dressing on Phryne’s scar, and the hole for the left breast needed a bit of tinkering as Dot hadn’t quite measured the difference in Phryne’s two breasts correctly, but for the most part, the effect was exactly right. Dot had also brought one of Phyrne’s favourite jazz-coloured tops. The pattern would hide most minor flaws in the prototype, but the fabric would also mold nicely to the new bandeau helping Dot to ensure that the fit was right. When Phryne pulled the blouse over her head and looked in the mirror, she beamed. “It’s perfect, Dot, just perfect.”

“I’m afraid Miss, that for now, you may have to give up the backless dresses, but it will work with the strapless ones.” “A minor sacrifice for a miracle, Dot.” 

“Let’s pack things up and call Mr. Butler to have him come and fetch us. I cannot wait to get out of this hospital.”


	16. The Package Has Landed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The denouement of the casefic. Plus Jack test drives Dot's invention.

Jack was still undercover as George Sanders when he retrieved the package that Harry Richardson had left for him at the front desk of the Seascape Hotel. It was small but heavy. Jack had borrowed Dr. Macmillan’s Geiger counter and as he placed the box in the boot of the cab he had borrowed from Bert and Cec, he confirmed that the contents were radioactive. 

He had arranged a dead drop about a mile away from the hotel, so he could leave the address and the box dimensions for Collins. The plan was for Collins to quickly make a replica of the package that Jack could swap out at the destination. He wanted to examine the contents more closely back at City South. 

He took a somewhat circuitous route to the post office so that Collins would have a chance to make the switch and when he arrived at his destination, he was impressed to find that Collins had left a very good facsimile in the dead drop they had agreed to near the side entrance. 

Although the drop was to the post office, the instructions were to simply leave the package on one of the counters provided for patrons rather than actually deliver it to one of the agents. As Jack drove off after depositing the package as required in his instructions, Collins, in civilian clothes, took over watching to see who picked it up and where it went. 

When Jack opened the package at City South, he confirmed that it was the missing radium from Radco. Meanwhile, Constable Collins observed someone dressed as a post office employee retrieve the decoy package and leave quickly out a side door. He was able to tail the package to a tony address in Toorak, one of Melbourne’s more upscale areas. He found a police box and called the Inspector. 

“What did the person look like?” the Inspector asked.

“Like you described Harold Richardson, sir. Tall, dark hair.”

“Is anyone else there, Collins?” 

“No sir, not so far. Do you want me to stay on watch?”

“Yes, and keep me posted if anyone else turns up.”

“Will do, Sir.”

Jack telephoned Phyrne and told her the address. 

“That’s Geoffrey Campbell’s house. I’ve been to a few fundraising functions there. His wife is big in local children’s charities.” Jack knew Campbell as the Member of Parliament for the area. 

“What could a man like Campbell be doing with Richardson?” he wondered out loud. 

“I can’t think, but I never liked him and so maybe he is bent in some way,” Phyrne replied. 

While Jack was out making deliveries, he had had Constable Wilkins carry out a search warrant for the offices of Botany Bay Pharmaceuticals in Melbourne. Wilkins had left a pile of papers and files on his desk. 

“Paperwork,” he groaned. Then he decided that this might be a perfect job for Miss Fisher while she recuperated in bed. As he walked past the front desk of the station, Constable Wilkins wrinkled his nose. 

“Sir, not to be impertinent, but you smell like a florist.”

Jack laughed. “Sometimes in this job, you have to go above and beyond. But I take your point, Wilkins, time for a change.”

Jack went home to shower and change before heading over to Wardlow. When he handed Cec his dustjacket back, Bert nearly collapsed from laughing at the smell. 

“Cor, Inspector, been investigating a dangerous gang of flower arrangers.”

“Something like that Mr. Johnson.” They all laughed. 

“I shall launder it for you, Mr. Yates,” Mr. Butler said, as he picked it up with the end of the broom handle. 

“Inspector, Miss Fisher has come home from the hospital and is upstairs. She has asked that I send you up if you came over.” Jack was pleased but a bit non-plussed by Mr. Butler’s sangfroid about sending him up to Phyrne’s bedroom unchaperoned. He wondered perhaps if Mrs. Collins was up there, too. 

“Miss Fisher, the Inspector is here,” Mr. Butler announced. Phyrne sat up in her silk pajamas and adjusted her new bandeau. She wasn’t used to sleeping in a bra, but she wanted to show off to Jack. “Let him in and bring some Veuve Cliquot if you would, I have had more than my fill of hospital tea.”

Jack walked in. He had only been in this room a couple of times. Once when he saved Miss Fisher from a spider and once when they had captured a burglar. He had slept over once after a bit of a drunken binge followed by Baron Fisher’s nerve tonic, but in the guest room, not in Phyrne’s boudoir. He looked around admiringly before looking down at Phyrne in the bed. When he did, he expected to see the pillow over her chest and did a momentary double take at what appeared to be two rather luscious breasts jiggling under a silk pajama top. 

“What do you think?” she said raising her arms above her head before wincing, “damn that incision.”

“Remarkable.”

“Dot’s invention. But I need a proper test drive. Only a man will be able to tell if the sleight of hand, if you will, works.”

“I thought you weren’t cleared for takeoff, Miss Fisher.”

“Pfftt. This is just a little taxi around the airfield, Jack. Come on, it’ll be fun.”

“Of that I have no doubt,” Jack said as he took of his coat and walked over to the bed. It took all of his savoir faire to keep a straight face as he reached for the right breast to examine it as clinically as he could. If he had let himself be unclinical, they may have wound up in the wild blue yonder before he could stop himself. “Nice, firm, malleable, a bit cool to the touch.”

“Now the other one,” Phyrne ordered. He reached for the left breast with some trepidation. As he cupped it and ran his thumb over her nipple, she arched her back and moaned.

“It seems you steer with the right, and shift gears on the left,” Jack said a bit archly, playing on the test drive metaphor. The both burst out laughing before Jack leaned in to kiss her playfully. 

Leaning back, he said “we have to stop, or we will be flying to the moon. Besides, I have work for you to do.” He indicated the briefcase full of papers.

“Wilkins found these papers when I sent him to search Botany Bay Pharmaceuticals. Rather than stay up all night at the office trying to see what might be relevant, I thought I would bring them to you and work on them here.”

“Wonderful, let’s see what we have.” Phyrne and Jack read through the stack of documents one by one, but nothing seemed quite what they were looking for. Jack admittedly was rather distracted by the setting and by the woman in the green silk pajamas. 

“Inspector call for you”, Mr. Butler announced at the door. Jack went downstairs to take the call from Constable Collins. 

“Sir, two other men have arrived in Toorak. What do you want me to do, now?”

“Stay put, Collins. I am on my way.”

Jack returned to Phyrne and passed on what Collins had told him. “I need to go over there” he said. 

“Wait, I’m coming too.” 

“No, Phryne, you aren’t. I am ordering you to stay here and if ordering won’t work, I will try pleading and then begging. I am not above handcuffs, either.” Phryne giggled but then frowned. When he used her first name, he was usually being as serious as possible.

“Seriously Phryne, I still need someone to go through this paperwork and even though it may not have the drama of an arrest at gunpoint, it may be the only way we find a way to hold Richardson, Campbell or the people at Botany Bay.” 

As Jack headed out to his car, he said to Mr. Butler, Bert and Cec, “I know that she will try and override me, but you would be doing her a favour if you barred the door and prevented her from following me. I don’t need her for this and she needs to take care not to hurt herself just now.” The three men, knowing nothing about the cancer, although they did know she had been ill, all give each other knowing looks. Jack sees them and says, “no, that’s not it. But wouldn’t that be a laugh if it were.”

Phryne pouted, but stayed behind looking at the documentation. “Eureka,” she shouted after another 15 minutes. “I have it. Mr. Butler bring the car around, I need to go to Toorak.” 

“Inspector Robinson left us with strict instructions not to let you follow him.” 

“Well, then we shall have to take a different route. Besides, he needs me, I have the proof that will allow him to make the arrests. Tally-ho!”

She had more enthusiasm in her voice than her body, though. It took her some time to dress and she needed Mr. Butler’s arm to get down the stairs and into the Hispano-Suiza. 

Jack had arrived at the Campbell residence not quite certain where to start. If Richardson was there he had enough to arrest him, but nothing on Botany Bay, Dr. Frederick or Geoffrey Campbell. 

He gathered up Constable Collins and knocked on the front door. Campbell’s butler told him that Mr. Campbell was not to be disturbed.

“I am Detective Inspector Jack Robinson and I need to speak with Mr. Campbell on a matter of grave importance.”

“Your Honour,” the butler addressed Campbell through the parlour door, “a police inspector is here and he insists on speaking with you.” 

Jack had not waited obediently in the hallway but had followed the butler in. 

“Mr. Richardson, I believe, and one of you is Dr. Frederick and the other from Botany Bay Pharmaceuticals. Detective Inspector Jack Robinson. This is my Constable.”

“He’s Frederick”, replied Campbell, pointing out a rather thin and wan man with a small moustache and that’s Alastair McDougall from Botany Bay.” Jack recognized McDougall from the Blue Cat Club. “That’s where Richardson made his connection,” he thought to himself. 

“What is the meaning of this?” Campbell asked with the arrogant nervousness of someone with something to hide. 

“A package was delivered here this afternoon that was supposed to contain radium. Radium that I believe was stolen from RadCo two days ago. What I don’t know is why a Member of Parliament might be interested in stolen radium?”

All four men looked at the unopened package on sitting on the table in the middle of the room. Campbell kept his cool, but Richardson grabbed the package and tore it open. “Sandbags. Its full of sandbags.” He turned on Frederick and McDougall. “Where’s the radium?”

“Safely stowed at City South police station, Mr. Richardson. Thank you for confirming that you were expecting it. Perhaps you can enlighten me about why a member of parliament, a physician and a business man were interested in it.” 

Richardson had been studying Jack and finally blurted out, “You. You’re the barman. It was a set up.” 

“No, just one of my more unusual under cover jobs,” Jack replied.

“I want a solicitor,” said Campbell. “Me, too,” added McDougall. 

Jack was not surprised when he looked out the window of the Campbell residence and saw the Hispano-Suiza pulling up. He thought to himself, “I don’t know why I bother to tell her to do anything.”

“I know why they were interested” said a cheerful female voice from the doorway. Phyrne’s voice was livelier than her body. She looked quite pale though well dressed and smiling brightly. 

“Miss Fisher?” said Campbell. 

“Geoff”, replied Phryne, “how did you manage to wind up in this mess? Gambling, women, greed?”

“Miss Fisher, perhaps you can enlighten us,” said Jack, tersely. Jack was equal parts furious and frightened at how frail she looked. 

“Indeed, I can. In that paperwork you left me with, I found this,” Phryne said, brandishing a contract. She handed it to Jack.

“On page one you can see the names of all these venerable gentlemen, well three gentlemen and Davey Jones, or is that Harry Richardson. Remember me?” Richardson stared daggers at Phyrne. 

“I guess you never realized you were flying around the world with a detective, did you? However, if I had known that you had just murdered Roland, I would have tossed you from the plane at 15,000 feet.”

“Murder,” Campbell exclaimed. “No one here murdered anyone.”

Phyrne continued, “Jack, these men have entered a deal in which Harry would provide Botany Bay with the formula for the radium drug that he stole from Roland after killing him. Dr. Frederick would do the testing, such as it would be (by the way Dr. MacMillan says hello) and Geoff would share in the profits, on the basis that he would put forward legislation protecting everyone from lawsuits if the radium drug proved to be poisonous, which, we know it would.”

“I’m not sure who stole the radium but since Harry needed you to make such a discreet delivery and he had it in his possession, I suspect his fingerprints will be on it.” 

Richardson snarled, “nope, that was Frederick and his connections at Radco.”

“You do know, gentlemen, and Harry, that the drug you propose to sell for millions, will actually kill the patients?” Jack inquired of the group of men.

Campbell turned to Richardson, “you told me it was a miracle cure. I only agreed to pass the legislation to cover any mistakes in the development of the product.” 

Turning to Phyrne, he said, “I had no idea that it was lethal. You have to believe me, Phryne.” He gave her one of the looks she despised that said it was all just between the upper classes and that she needed to protect her own. 

“Lethal to your bank account in particular, Geoff,” Phyrne replied. “So, no, I don’t believe you. Jack, take them all away, they make me sick.”

“Mr. Richardson, you are under arrest for the murder of Roland Carlton-Paget, the theft of radium and the conspiracy to commit murder. The rest of you, the conspiracy to commit murder will be sufficient.”

Campbell gasped then snorted, “Conspiracy to commit murder, surely not. The commissioner will hear about this.” 

“I’m sure he will. The charges are easily made out by this contract to protect the others from liability for a product you know to be lethal. But we will add in abusing the public trust, for good measure. Come along gentlemen.”

As the Constable started towards him with the handcuffs, Richardson tried one last gambit to distract the police so he could make an escape. He had seen the way the Inspector looked at Phyrne Fisher when she walked in and sussed out that there was more than a professional relationship involved. The Inspector had looked both worried and pleased that she had turned up when she did. So, in desperation, he turned the attention of the room towards her by spitting accusations. 

“Miss Fisher, this is a bit much even from you.” Everyone turned towards him as he continued. “What is this just revenge for me turning you down in Singapore? Can’t take it when a man refuses you when you throw yourself at him?” 

Phryne stared at him defiantly. “Oh please, Harold, ‘hell hath no fury’ is your defence to an accusation of murder?” 

Calling Phryne out as a tart was a test for the policeman and it worked. Davey caught the tell-tale flicker of jealously on his face, so he moved in for what he hoped would be the kill that would let him escape. Richardson was backing towards the open parlour window the as he spoke. “It wasn’t just me that turned you down, either was it. That Frenchman and the Gyppo, too.”

Phryne strode defiantly towards him and said, “if you think that you can create a diversion by trying to embarrass me about my lovers, you are on the wrong foot. Allow me to list them for you. I believe it was Michel, in Nice and you are quite wrong, he didn’t turn me down,” she said with a, feigned, lusty tone. “Then, Ahmed in Baghdad … Constable, make sure Mr. Richardson doesn’t escape out the window.”

“That will do Miss Fisher”, Jack said quietly. “Mr. Richardson, you are under arrest for the murder of Roland Carlton-Paget. You will be extradited to London for trial. The rest of you,” he waved to encompass the politician, the doctor and the business man, “will accompany me to the station to assist in my investigation.” 

“I demand to speak to a solicitor,” said Campbell. 

“That might be wise,” Jack replied. “Constable, please escort these gentlemen to the cars.”

“Jack”, Phyrne said, as she looked expectantly at him.

“Miss Fisher, I will not be needing your assistance with the interviews. You do not look well, I suggest that you go home and back to bed, where you evidently belong,” Jack said without looking at her. 

He knew it was cruel, but it was all he could muster. He felt sick to his stomach. She had never intended to try and make some kind of life with him. It was all concocted in his own mind. She just manipulated him like a puppet on a string when it served her own ends. He started to walk away.

“Jack, you don’t understand.”

“Not here, Miss Fisher.”

“Please let me explain.”

“Later.”

“Promise.”

“Miss Fisher, I have matters to attend to. Constable Collins, please make sure that Miss Fisher gets home safely. And stays there.”


	17. Epilogue (or Jack Goes to Ground School)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack and Phryne finally come to terms with their relationship and celebrate with some shared but separate smut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this chapter about five times. First it was a funny ending, then a melodramatic one. Now it is a bit of both. I hope it isn't too jarring moving from one to the other.

Phryne was sitting in her parlour nursing her umpteenth whiskey. “I blew it. I blew everything,” she said to Mac. Phyrne’s face was pale and her eyes were swollen from weeping. 

“Nonsense,” Mac growled. “I explained to him that the fear of dying from an insidious cause like cancer will cause depression. The man is not that dense.” 

“No Mac, this is different. I don’t know what I need him to be or why I need him to be anything, but I can’t bear that he despises me.” 

“Pish, tosh. He doesn’t hate you. But Phryne, he is a proud man. You have always taken pleasure in pushing him to the limit. Maybe this time you went too far, but he needs to understand the circumstances that you were … are in.”

“Mac, I have never groveled before a man. Never.”

“Well, there is a first time for everything.” 

“There might be, but there is no likelihood he will turn up here tonight. I wouldn’t if I were him.” 

“You underestimate him, Phryne, I have seen men in love before and he has it bad. If he doesn’t come over tonight, then tomorrow morning you will have to stiffen your spine and apologize.”

“Apologize for what,” Phyrne said defiantly, changing her tone as she struggled to find a way to explain her behaviour to herself. “So, I had some lovers on my way back from England. What’s new about that?”

“What’s new? Are you sincerely asking that? You invited him to come after you. You implied that there was something more in the relationship. He has shown you more tenderness since your surgery than I have ever seen a man provide to his lover and then you ask him to pretend like none of that matters when you throw your indiscretions right in his face.” 

“It helped us catch a killer,” Phyrne replied with more defiance than she felt.

“Was it worth it?” Mac asked from under arched eyebrows. 

Phryne gulped and tears began to flow again. 

“It is time for you to retire, Miss Fisher. You are only 5 days out of serious surgery. You are not going to get better if you don’t take this recovery seriously. 

Mr. Butler,” Mac called out for Phryne’s loyal aide. “Please help me get Miss Fisher up the stairs to bed.” 

As they helped her up the stairs, Phryne instructed Mr. Butler to let Jack in if he came over, no matter how late, though she had no real hope that he would.

As Mac was tucking Phyrne into bed, she saw the headlights as the black sedan pull up in front of Wardlow. 

“I should go, Phyrne. I have early rounds.” Mac left the bedroom and snuck out through the kitchen. 

It was close to midnight when Jack drove up and he worried that it was too late for the conversation that he desperately wanted to have but equally desperately wanted to never have. Although Phryne’s words had hurt him, he was also reminded of what Dr. Macmillan had told him about how profoundly the diagnosis of cancer had affected her. He wanted to give her a chance to explain, as he had promised he would. He saw a light in her window and decided to knock gently. Mr. Butler opened the door just as he was turning away. 

“Miss Fisher has left instructions that you are to be admitted, no matter the hour, Inspector. Please come in. Are you hungry?”

Jack realized that he was starving although he was also not hungry at the same time. “Get your head together, Robinson. You are a grown man,” he admonished himself. 

“As a matter of fact, Mr. Butler, I am famished. Is Miss Fisher still awake at this hour?”

“I believe that her light is on and she did instruct me to make sure that you were brought upstairs. If you want to leave your coat and hat, I will bring you a tray.”

“Thank you, Mr. Butler,” Jack said with genuine gratitude. 

He climbed the stairs quietly and somewhat hesitantly. He wasn’t sure what to expect when he got to her room. He didn’t want to wake her if she was sleeping, but he did want to see her very badly. 

He needn’t have worried, she called to him softly when she heard his steps on the landing. 

“There’s only one man who that could be at this hour. Jack, come in.”

He entered her bedroom, where she was resplendent in emerald silk pajamas on her large and sumptuous bed. 

Mr. Butler followed with a tray of ham and cheese sandwiches and the decanter of whiskey from the parlour. He deposited them and left as an awkward silence descended on the room.

“Miss Fisher.”

“Inspector.”

“You wanted to explain?”

“Jack. Please sit down and pour us both a drink. I feel like I am under interrogation.” 

“And I feel like I am standing on quicksand, Phryne. The same quicksand I have been standing on since the day I met you.”

“When I was in London, my mother accused me of being like my father. Maybe she was right.”

“Phryne, what do you want from me? What do I mean to you? What am I to you?” Jack’s voice was hoarse belying the amount of will it had taken him to come to her house after the things which had been said when they arrested Richardson and the others. 

“I have spent most of the last month trying to answer that question for myself, Jack. I am not sure that I can put it into words. Sometimes it feels like you are my best friend. Sometimes it feels like you are the biggest mystery that I will never solve.”

“Do you love me, Phryne?”

“Love seems like such a small word to explain what I feel, Jack.”

“Why did you sleep with those other men on the way home from England?”

“Because I thought I might be dying. Because I thought I might never be attractive to a man again. Because I wanted to go into some place outside reality and pretend that none of what was happening to me was true. I can assure you that I didn’t do it to hurt you. But I know that it did. And I am sorrier than you can imagine.”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“Which one, Inspector. You asked several.”

“What am I to you, Phyrne?”

She swirled her drink again. “You are the only man who has ever taken me seriously in my life. I mean really seriously. Lots of men think that they take me seriously, but they only pretend to because I have a title, or because I have money, or because they think I will take them home with me if they do. And frankly, I couldn’t care less about any of them. I never believed I needed the regard of men to be happy. And then I met you, Jack Robinson. 

“You, who take the whole world seriously. You took me seriously. You trusted my instincts and my intellect. You treated me as a partner. It became important to me that you believed in me and respected me. It drove me crazy that I could never seduce you because you thought of me as so much more than just a conquest for your bedpost. And yet, had you successfully seduced me, I probably would not feel like I do now. Because, Jack Robinson, though many men have fucked my body, none but you have fucked my mind. I am laid bare before you, Inspector Robinson. I want you, body and soul. 

“That’s what you are to me. What am I to you?”

Jack had imagined a variety of versions of Phryne’s response to his question, but the one he received was none of them. He was lit up with joy and terrified in a single moment. 

“Phryne, I am not sure what I expected your answer to be, but if I could have crafted the answer I wanted to hear most, it would not have held a candle to what you have just said.

“You are, to me, the very sun in the sky. I know that sounds pathetically like bad poetry. But there is no other way to describe it. You took my dark and wounded self and shined a light so bright it expunged the doom from every corner. I have wanted you physically so badly that I have nearly behaved in ways sober Inspectors should not. But the wanting is not about your body, though, of course, you are the most beautiful woman I have ever met, the wanting is about you. It means life itself to me that you respect me and trust me and love me.”

“So, what next, Jack?”

“Indeed, what next?”

“I would like you to stay with me, Jack.” 

“But, Dr. MacMillan…”

“I know what Mac says,” Phryne pouted, but then got serious.

“Jack this dance has gone on for far too long. I may not be able to make love to you for a few more weeks, but if this is what I want it to be, then it’s not such a bad thing to practice sleeping together without ‘sleeping together.’ 

“Phryne are you asking me to stay tonight, or to stay forever?”

“I am asking you to stay for as long as you can stand it. I won’t change, and I won’t be easy to live with and I may not even be that nice to you a lot of the time. But I can’t be apart from you anymore.”

“Then the answer to your question, Phryne, is, yes, I will stay.”

As Phyrne reached out and took Jack’s hand to pull him into the bed beside her, she said “And perhaps a few gentle turns around the airfield won’t hurt.”

“About that,” Jack looked at his feet, “it might not have occurred to you that my taxiing skills are a little rusty, if they were ever any good to begin with.”

Phryne chuckled, “I have absolutely no fears about your piloting talents whatsoever, but if it helps, we could spend the next few weeks in ground school.”

Jack looked at her quizzically.

“I have wondered a great deal, Inspector Robinson, what you look like under that suit of clothes. Stand up and take off that jacket and waistcoat” she ordered. 

Jack stood up and took off the items of clothing leaving his shirt and suspenders. 

“Turn around.”

Jack slowly blinked and grinned as he realized what she had in mind. 

“Think of it as giving me a private fan dance,” she said. “Suspenders, cufflinks, shoes and socks, next.”

Jack aped a burlesque show as he slowly removed his suspenders, one by one, followed by each cufflink and then toed off his shoes and removed the garters holding up his socks. 

“Around again,” she requested, her voice growing hoarse. 

When he turned back towards her, he blinked in surprise and pleasure when he noticed that her left hand had disappeared into her pajama bottoms and was moving slowly between her thighs. His trousers began tenting out to indicate that the action was not without its effect on him. 

“Trousers, slowly.”

Jack’s eyes were now locked on Phryne’s as he undid and slowly dropped his trousers to the floor, leaving him in only his smalls and singlet. 

“That looks serious”. They both knew she was referring to his very evident erection. 

“It is, Miss Fisher.” 

“You might want to take care of it.”

Jack slid his own hand into his boxers and took hold of his cock. 

The two of them stared into each other’s faces, watching the changing expressions as they brought themselves pleasure, together. 

Jack could barely form a coherent thought. He had brought himself release so many times thinking of Phyrne, but he had never masturbated in front of another person in his life. The sensation of pleasuring himself at the same time as Phyrne was doing the same and watching him was almost more than he could stand. 

Phryne was listening for the tightening of their breathing and as she began to reach her climax, said, “Jack, are you ready?”

“Ready, Miss Fisher”

“Contact”, she cried out as they both came together. They both moaned and then laughed. 

Jack fell backwards into the chair he had originally occupied. He was breathing heavily and sweating. “My God, Phyrne. If that is a little turn around the airfield, I can’t imagine what take off will be like.”

Phryne reached for a handkerchief off her bedside table to wipe herself clean. She held it to her face and took a deep breath before handing it to Jack. He also breathed in her scent before wiping himself off. 

“Come here”, she said, opening her arms to him. 

His last thought before falling asleep in her arms was that he was going to enjoy ground school a great deal.

**Author's Note:**

> I realized as a went along that I was already hinting at another case. I decided not to go any further with it in this story but I will try and find time to give it more content in another story.
> 
> One canon note: I recently re-read the book "Unnatural Habits" and though I had remembered that the gay gentleman's club was called the Blue Cat, I had forgotten the name of the proprietor and substituted my own. I have edited the story to put in the correct name of the owner, Mr. Featherstonehaugh.
> 
> I have also improved the writing in some parts where I posted it without properly editing the tenses. Sorry about that.


End file.
